Bits and Pieces
by Daughter of the Darkness Flame
Summary: The Guardian Spirit readjusts to her home world, and has to deal with deadly problems that she can no longer remember. Full summary inside.
1. Rise and Shine

I guess the standard disclaimers apply here. I don't own Baten Kaitos. Okay! Stop cheering in joy! God, you didn't have to sound that happy…

Expanded Summary: The Guardian Spirit Seiryah returns to her own world. However, when Kalas and Melodia erased her memories in Moonguile forest, they never really returned. Stripped of almost all knowledge of her home world, she struggles to survive and find her missing sister while some of the most powerful forces in her homeland try to destroy her as if she had never existed and her friends and remaining family squabble with one another for her time and allegiance. Meanwhile, back in the world of Baten Kaitos, something unseen and malevolent seems to be behind the rash of bad luck that has befallen the reconstruction attempts and a few botched assassinations directed at the leaders of the six countries. After a close call nearly kills someone dear to him, Kalas decides to take matters into his own hands and investigate on his own.

Rated Teen for creepiness. Might go up later on. Now, join me for the first installment of…

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Bits and Pieces

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Prologue: Rise and Shine

She awoke to light. Sterile, white light that reminded her of Alfard, of the hallways of the imperial fortress. But whereas the fortress had been a marvel of gold and grandeur, this room was plain, hideously ugly. It would have been ugly by any standards, she was sure, but especially in comparison with that. It was a truly repulsive shade of gray-green, with all sorts of machines that she couldn't discern the function of, a single, truly tiny window that looked out into blackness (night, just her luck. Of course it was night. That was the way her luck always ran…) beige tiled floors, ceiling that appeared to be made out of the oddest sort of wood she had ever seen. At least, she thought it was wood. Although why anyone would make a ceiling out of entirely wood was beyond her.

What she disliked most about the room was the… sterility. It did not have a lived-in feel, it felt like a prison, or a laboratory. As a spirit, she had gained a sensitivity to her surroundings beyond that of normal humans, and she could pick up the emotions that had passed through a place, if they were strong enough. However, this room had such a sanitized feel to it, that she almost missed the remnants of…

Pain. Death and pain.

"Time to leave now. Past time," she whispered, then winced. Her voice felt like it hadn't been used in years. _Which is just about right. I guess I really did make it home. Is this what home really feels like?_

_I knew I should have stayed._

Okay, she wanted out of this room. Well, the first step was to sit up. She did so, with a surprising amount of difficulty. _That's what I get for being out of body for at least three years… I wonder what I look like…_

She looked down at herself; there was no mirror, so looking at her body would have to do. Her gaze fell on her slender, pale arm, and was drawn immediately to what appeared to be a tube of some sort sticking out of it. She barely suppressed a scream, and ripped it out. That action caused her to start bleeding, of course. She cast around for something to use for bandages, and found only her bed sheets. After four tries, she managed to rip a strip off the piece of cloth, and started binding up her injury, as she had seen Kalas do with the fringes of his cape multiple times when the party's healing Magnus had gone bad. With another sickening jolt, she realized that there were wires attached to her skin, including her scalp and chest. More carefully than she had torn off the tube, she started removing the wires. She sighed in relief when there was no sensation of a needle being ripped out of her skin as she took off the first wire. As she continued, she noticed that the various machines in the room started displaying straight green lines instead of wavy ones, and they trading their steady beeping pulses for a single, continuous metallic whine. With a curse, she suddenly realized that it was an alarm system of some sort, and started ripping off the rest of the wires more quickly. It didn't matter if they scarred her somehow, she did not need to be pretty to live. She needed to leave before they knew she was awake.

She staggered out of the bed, hitting the floor before her legs could register the fact that they were now required to bear weight. A single sob escaped her as she was struck by the futility of it all, and a tear rolled down each of her cheeks.

"I will not give up so easily!" she muttered, scrubbing the tears from her cheeks and raking her hair out of her face. She paused for a moment, and looked at her hair. It was probably down to her mid-back, and… red. It was very, very red. She grabbed her hair, a fistful of it, and stared for several moments. It was bright, bright red and very wavy, almost curly. Never had she pictured herself with… _curly _hair. Or hair almost the exact same shade as Lyude's. With an angry shake, (this was no time to daydream!) she forced herself upright… and the room spun while black and neon green spots danced in front of her eyes. She was forced to waste more time simply standing there, clutching the table next to the bed for support until the dizziness left. Ignoring her injured arm, the stinging sensations from where she had ripped off the wires, and the burning in her muscles, she staggered to the door and out of the room.

The hallway was no better than the room she had woken up in, save for one thing. The walls were white. Anything was better than that dreadful shade of green.

"Visiting hours are well past, Mr. Kasaten! Please, come back with me downstairs!"

_Malpercio's remains! Someone's coming!_ She thought. Panicking, she ducked around a corner in what she hoped was the opposite direction of the arguing voices and ran smack into someone. The impact sent her to the floor, and she managed to land in a somewhat dignified sprawl. She pulled herself up and tried to bolt, but the person, the man she had run into grabbed her injured arm. She cried out in pain, and he let her go. Surprised, she looked up, and met a pair of green eyes that were widening in shock.

"Seiryah?" A smile slowly spread across the man's rather attractive face. "Is it really you, Seiryah? You're finally awake?"

"W-who are you?" she stammered, taking a hesitant step backward.

Confusion spread across the man's face. With that expression, and the man's almond-shaped eyes, he really did remind her of Kalas… _stop wishing for what you can't have! _She hissed at herself. She was never going to see any of them ever again… "What kind of question is that?" he barked, sounding confused and hurt.

Her hands came up into a guard position. Sure, she couldn't fight, but maybe she could bluff… "It's a perfectly logical question, since I've never seen you before in my life! Now, who are you, and what is this place?"

"We're in the hospital, Seiryah… wait. Who am _I?_ Seiryah… don't you remember anything?"

"I…" the lie stuck in her throat as comprehension dawned on her. "You… you knew me, didn't you." Her arms dropped to her sides, but she didn't drop her gaze.

"Yes… you could say that…" His beautiful green eyes clouded, and he dropped his head, his feathery black hair partially obscuring his face. "So, you've forgotten everything…"

He looked so hurt, so lost, that her heart ached for him. Tentatively, she reached out an arm and gently placed it on his shoulder. She thought this was how people comforted each other, she had seen her friends do it often enough. But she had no idea who this man was and…

He jumped at her touch and she shied away. Clearly, that had been the wrong response in this situation. She wished that she knew what her relationship had been to this stranger who reminded her of Kalas, it would make it easier to deal with him.

"I… do remember a few things. But none of them are about you. I… I am sorry."

He sighed. "It's not your fault. I should have been there, should have done something… ah, maybe it's better we start this over from the beginning. I'm Arvel Shida."

"Seiryah," she replied, shaking his hand. Now this was something that she knew how to do from her time in Kalas's world. "So… do I call you Arvel or Shida?"

"Arvel, please," he said quickly.

"Do I have a second name too?"

"Yes. Veranen. Your name is Seiryah Veranen."

She opened her mouth to ask another question, when she was forestalled by a bellow of rage.

"Where is Seiryah!" shouted a clearly masculine voice. "Where did you people take her?"

"Mihkal," Arvel groaned, burying his face in a hand. "Come on, Seiryah, we have to calm him down before he causes a panic and wakes half the hospital."

"Okay, fine. You can tell me what a 'hospital' is on the way," Seiryah agreed reluctantly. As long as he wasn't going to try and strap her to that beeping machine again, she was willing to trust this Arvel Shida… for the moment.

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The next chapter is probably going to focus on Seiryah as well. Don't worry, I'll get to Kalas and company... eventually... 


	2. ReAcquaintance

AN: Joy and happiness! I finished the first chapter! I'm thinking the first several chapters will be on Seiryah, since I need some time for problems to develop on Kalas's side. Not as much as you might think, though… I'll be explaining that in this chapter.

Oh, and in case you didn't figure this out before… there will be spoilers if you haven't beaten the game, since this fic takes place post game. Lots and lots of spoilers. You have been warned.

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First Chapter: Re-acquaintance

They walked rather briskly back in the direction she had come from. Seiryah had difficulty keeping up with Arvel's longer, steadier strides, and by the time they got back she almost fell to the floor, she was so exhausted, even though the walk had taken scarcely five minutes. Inside the room where she had been asleep a large man with curly, close-cropped black hair, dark brown eyes, and darker skin than Seiryah could ever remember seeing before arguing with not one, but two women dressed in white skirt and blouse uniforms of some sort. One was very short, with bright blond hair that reminded her of Xelha and hazel green eyes. The other was about medium height, with mousy light brown hair and light brown eyes. Interestingly enough, it was the shorter and more innocent-looking of the pair who was standing up to the storm of rage.

"By the gods, Liris, what do you mean that you don't know what happened. Look at this!" he shouted, grabbing the needle with the tube attached and holding it up. "This is blood! Someone pulled this out of her skin!"

"And that doesn't mean that she's been kidnapped!" The blonde woman, Liris, snapped in retort. "Seiryah was my friend too, Mihkal! And even if I don't know exactly what the four of you were up to, I have done everything to make sure that she was taken care of while she was here! There is nothing that points to her being taken against her will! Look at this, man!" she shouted, waving the torn blanket like a banner. "Do you think a kidnapper would have gone to the trouble of bandaging her arm?"

"Liris…" Arvel tried to interject.

"And how do you know that was used for bandages?" Mihkal countered. "It could have been used to tie her up!"

"Mihkal…"

Liris snorted in contempt. "Who would go to the trouble of restraining a comatose woman? Furthermore, do you see any signs of forced entry?"

"Well, with as lax as you people are here, someone could have taken her out right under your noses!"

If Liris had been angry before, that barb took her to something that made angry a misnomer. "You… you… after I busted my arse getting transferred here so I could keep an eye on Seiryah… and you won't even tell me what I'm supposed to be protecting her from!… you… you dare to…! Mihkal Falharden, if you don't take that back right now _you _are going to need a doctor!" the short woman shrieked.

"Please, the patients…" murmured the timid brown-haired woman, wringing her hands nervously. "We're going to get into a lot of trouble, Liris. Maybe we should…"

"You stay out of this!" snapped Liris and Mihkal at the same time. After half a moment, each realized that the other had said the exact same thing, and they then shared a glare that made their previous exchanges seem friendly in comparison.

Seiryah decided to stop this altercation before someone got seriously hurt. "Excuse me…"

Every eye was directed at her, and for the first time in her memory, Seiryah got the experience of having everyone within her range of vision staring at her, and she found it most unpleasant. She did not squirm, and she managed to keep her face expressionless.

"Seiryah?" the short blond, Liris said, seeming frozen. "You're… awake…?" and then, to Seiryah's surprise, Liris dashed up and hugged her. "Oh, you're finally awake! It's been so long! A whole year!"

"A…year?" Seiryah asked weakly.

"Yeah, it's been a long time," Mihkal said comfortingly, tousling her hair with an almost paternal smile on his face. "Welcome back, kid."

"That's… not what I mean…" she murmured. A year wasn't long enough. She'd been in Kalas's world for about three years, she knew that. And she had probably spent some time in one of the Outer Dimensions before she'd wandered to Nekton. So, it should be at least three years, maybe more. Why only one…?

"What's wrong, Seiryah?" Mihkal asked, noticing her expression. "Hey, let go of her, Liris. I don't think she can breathe."

"Oops. Sorry," Liris mumbled, letting go quickly as an embarrassed blush spread across her cheeks. "Why didn't you tell me? You know I always overdo things…"

"Do you?" slipped out of Seiryah's mouth before she could stop it. She then watched as confusion tainted the concern on their faces. She had to look away. She didn't want to see their faces when they realized that she couldn't remember them.

"So, it's not just me," Arvel said darkly. "You don't remember them, either. Do you remember anything, Seiryah?"

"…no…" she said softly, still not looking at any of them. Instead, she walked over to the window and peered out, trying to catch a glimpse of the world outside. Her home. Where she would be spending the rest of her life.

Right now, that thought made her want to cry.

"Oh, Seiryah…" Liris whispered.

"Um… I'll just be… checking on the other patients…" the other woman said quickly, before leaving.

Seiryah turned around, her curiosity getting the better of her, "Patients? So this is a place where the ill are tended? Is that what a 'hospital' is? What is your function… you said your name was Liris, correct? Are you a doctor?"

"…a nurse," Liris replied, looking slightly faint at the barrage of questions.

Mihkal laughed softly. "That's our Seiryah. Curious to a fault."

Seiryah blushed a bit, both because of her string of questions earlier, and a memory that was stuck in her head…

* * *

"_Why don't you smell it, Kalas?" Seiryah suggested. The blue-haired teen looked at the large green beaker suspiciously._

"_Are you sure, Seiryah? It looks kinda poisonous to me…"_

"_Silly, if the fumes were poisonous, everyone in the classroom would be dead. Just smelling it won't hurt you. Besides, that lady will probably give you something if you help her out," Seiryah added, knowing how Kalas would do just about anything for loot._

"…_Fine. But I'm not tasting it if it smells the same way it looks." Kalas leaned over the beaker while the female scholar looked on eagerly, and took a deep breath. "Hey! It actually smells pretty good!"_

"_Really?" the scholar asked. "Can you describe it for me?"_

"_Um… a little bit like apple pie… okay, now I _want _to taste it…" He snatched the cup that the female scholar had been about to offer out of her hands and leaned over the beaker scooping out a cupful. He then brought it hesitantly to his mouth. He took the tiniest mouthful…_

"_Bleargh!" Kalas cried, dropping the cup and writhing about on the floor._

"_Kalas, are you okay?" Seiryah gasped._

"_Yeah… fine…" Kalas muttered once he had stopped thrashing. "Gah, for something that sure smelled so good, that sure tasted terrible… remind me never to bash Xelha's cooking ever again. And if you ever tell the others about this, spirit or not, I'll find a way to kill you."_

"_Hey, why would I want to torture you with something that was _my _idea in the first place?" Seiryah snapped. That stupid scholar was laughing, which wasn't doing anything for her temper._

_

* * *

_

"Um, you okay Seiryah? Mihkal asked, peering into her eyes.

"…I'm fine. Can… can you show me where I can find a mirror. And can I get out of this… thing?" she asked, picking disdainfully at the ill-fitting, thin white dress she was wearing.

"Um, why do you want a mirror?" Liris asked.

"Because she doesn't remember what she looks like," Arvel said before Seiryah was forced to reply. She shot him a grateful look.

Liris blinked. "You know, I don't think I've ever heard of a case of amnesia this bad. It's a miracle that you're still able to talk."

"Oh thanks, I did not need that cheerful image…" Seiryah groaned. _I guess I should be thankful that things aren't even worse than they already are. Damn you, Melodia!_

"Um… right. Here, I'll take you to the bathroom, it's this way. As for clothes… I kept a spare pair of yours here in case you… woke up. Technically, I shouldn't let you wear them until you're discharged, but since you're you, I don't think I'll lose my job if I make an exception."

"Why… does who I am make a difference?" Seiryah asked, unable to totally suppress a yawn. It was disgusting, how much her body had deteriorated in only a year. She had been awake for less than a half an hour, and already she wanted to go back to sleep!

"I think we can talk about that in the morning," Liris suggested gently, pulling a dark blue blouse and a pair of black slacks out of the drawer. "Here, the bathroom's a little way down the hall. I can take you there."

Seiryah's exhaustion took all the bite out of her glare, "That's an evasion if I've ever heard one."

Liris chose to ignore the challenge and made a show of counting doors, although Seiryah got the feeling that the blonde woman could navigate the complex blindfolded. "Four… five… six… ah, here it is!" Seiryah could make out in the dim light a sigh that read 'for women' on the door, as well as a rather primitive outline of a person wearing a dress. "You can get changed in here. Although… the accident you were in was pretty bad, and there was permanent scarring. Just to warn you."

"How bad was it?" Seiryah asked.

Liris's face darkened and lost all traces of joviality, "That's not something to be talking about so soon after you woke up. You just get dressed, okay? It's late, but Mihkal probably woke some of the patients up with his idiotic shouting. I'll make sure that no one disturbs you." Liris opened the door for her, carefully making sure that she saw how it was done, and then added, as if an afterthought, "Do you think you're going to need help putting your clothes on? I mean, since you don't remember anything…"

"I can handle things fine by myself. Thank you for offering, however," Seiryah replied. This was something she needed to do by herself. She didn't want someone watching her as she re-established what she looked like, not even someone who might have been a friend, who was breaking rules to help her. Flashing what she hoped was a grateful smile, Seiryah shut the door behind her.

The room was small, with brighter artificial lighting than had been in the hallway. The difference was enough to make Seiryah blink several times as her eyes struggled to adjust. When her eyes were finished getting used to the harsher artificial light, she walked over to the mirror hanging above the single sink, mesmerized.

To her shock, she was actually rather pretty. It wasn't Savyna's very dark, dangerous grace or Xelha's warm and fluffy openness, it was something regal and refined. Even dressed in her horrible sheet dress, she was… elegant. It was a surprise, and not an unpleasant one. Her silvery-gray eyes mirrored the shock she was feeling. _Really, I almost look like a noble of some sort… _Seiryah snorted in laughter at that thought. Even though she was far prettier than she had ever guessed she would be, she still couldn't imagine prancing around in dresses or anything more formal than the clothes Liris had handed her. A simple blue blouse and black slacks, perfectly practical. At least losing her memory didn't seem to have altered her tastes in the slightest.

She pulled on the pants first, noticing that they were rather loose in the hips and waist. _Well duh, I must have lost a lot of weight if I've been unconscious for a year._ Shrugging to herself, she shucked the hated sheet dress and reached for the blouse…

She hissed in shock as she saw her back in the mirror. It was a mass of scar tissue, as if she had been badly burned by something that crept halfway down her upper arms and up to the base of her neck. _It must extend all down the backs of my legs, too… I can't _believe _I just noticed that! Come to think of it, shouldn't my hair be all burnt off too?_ She glared at her reflection and shook her head violently. Thinking about something superficial as _hair _at a time like this… becoming mortal must have scrambled her mind.

She finished dressing quickly, her mind seething with questions. Namely, what kind of accident would cause such extensive damage that even after a year the scars were still pronounced and it _still _hurt a little to move. Of course, that might just be the ache of straining muscles that hadn't been used in a long time, but still!

She threw open the door, preparing to demand Liris tell her what had happened… only to find the hallway empty. The place seemed empty and dead, as if nothing had stirred there for years… _stop spooking yourself and focus! _She thought irritably, listening for sounds of movement. She was rewarded by the faint sound of talking in the direction of the room where she had first woken up. As quietly as she could manage, she stalked back in that direction. Maybe now she would get some answers about Mihkal Falharden. Arvel Shida and Liris No Second Name…

"Now that we're alone, I can say what I want to say," Liris grated out. Even though Seiryah couldn't see her from behind the door, she could easily imagine the diminutive blonde glaring death at the two taller, supposedly more intimidating men. Seiryah personally felt that Liris could trade glares with the best of the best (Kalas, Ayme, Savyna, and anyone from the Empire for starters…) "And what I want to say is this. What, in the name of the Holy God, is going on here? What are both of you… both of you!... doing prancing around here after hours? If Janata blabs to anyone, I'm never going to be able to get another job anyplace decent! What the hell kind of crap are you up to, and what have you gotten Seiryah involved in?"

"We got a tip from reliable sources that someone was going to make an attempt on Seiryah's life tonight," Arvel said with a calm that chilled the former Guardian Spirit to the bone.

Liris let out a braying laugh. "Now that is the most ridicules thing I have _ever _heard! Who would _dare_ anger the king by assassinating one of the last living members of House Veranen? None of the other countries are stupid enough to want to go to war with us… not after last time… unless…" there was a pregnant pause, and Liris sucked in a ragged breath. "You're not _still _spouting off that crazy conspiracy theory crap, are you Arvel? Wasn't being jailed _once_ for slander enough? If you become enough of a nuisance to House Sheyol, the Grand Duchess might decide that she wants your head after all. Hell, she might have changed her mind about that already. She didn't know the nature of your relationship with Seiryah the last time she threw you in a jail cell. She does now."

"Seiryah found rather convincing proof…"

"How?" Liris asked incredulously. "Hacking? Using her relations to _spy _inside House Sheyol?" Neither Mihkal nor Arvel said anything. "Dear Rahanon. You really did have her hacking. You had her hacking Sheyol's mainframe. Don't tell me you had her spying in the main house, too…"

"Do you think I want her to get a noose around her neck, Liris?" Arvel almost shouted, his first real outburst of the evening. "No! Of course I never asked her to do something that dangerous! Although… I doubt that stopped her from doing a bit of snooping on her own. You know what she's like…"

A ringing slap echoed out of the open door and along the hallway. "You… you… you _jackass! _How dare you get her involved in your madcap schemes! I thought you were good enough for her, but…" Liris cut off, clearly disgusted. "And you, Mihkal? Do you believe this cow dung?"

Mihkal sighed. "Whether you believe it or not, Liris, it is the truth. Seiryah did everything she could to help uncover that truth, and that is why she is in this condition."

The silence could have cut glass. "So the accident…"

Arvel's laughter was bitter, and had the acidic bite of self-mockery. "How many times do the engines of the very top of the line vehicles fail in a way that causes them to self-destruct, Liris? One in a thousand? One in a million?" His laughter echoed darkly, carrying not humor, but rage and self-hatred. "I was careless, I let her find out, Liris. And you know how Seiryah is. Was. Loyal to the death, and too curious for her own good. I killed her, Liris. I killed her and her family." The bitterness that permeated his voice was streaked in pain. "Gods help me… how am I going to tell her?"

"Seiryah's not…"

"Isn't she, though?" Arvel interrupted. "She doesn't remember us, Mihkal. She doesn't remember anything. Our Seiryah is dead, and so is the knowledge that they tried to kill her for. We're back to square one. No, we're worse than back to square one. At square one, we had a hacker who had a chance in hell of getting inside Sheyol's computer network. By this time next year, that bitch is going to rule everything, and she'll have us all dancing in our bones. We're dead, Mihkal."

"Arvel…" Mihkal muttered. His tone of voice radiated concern, which was perfectly understandable. Arvel was talking like a man on the brink of suicide.

"Arvel…" Liris sounded like she really wanted to continue her tirade, but also didn't want to inflict any more pain on Arvel in his current condition. Suddenly everyone's attention was drawn by a crash and a scream coming from down the hall.

"By the Holy God!" Liris hissed, "That was Janata!"

"I know this isn't the best time to gloat, but…"

"You told me so, yes, Mihkal, I know. Now, let's make whoever snuck in here wish that they'd never been born!" Liris cried. Seiryah barely had time to duck into the room next door to her own before three sets of feet dashed past. Seiryah then had the 'pleasure' of looking at some old man hooked up to the beeping machines and the water sack while she waited for their footsteps to fade away. Making a note to ask Liris exactly what those machines did, Seiryah slipped back out of the room to follow. She still had her spirit spells, after all, and she wasn't going to get an answer to any of her questions if those three died.

At least, she hoped she still had her spirit spells. If not, she would probably be united with her friends once more… in the next world.

* * *

AN: (yes, another one) I have a question. Does anyone know what color Savyna and Xelha's eyes are? Because in the opening, Savyna's eyes are yellow and Xelha's eyes are dark blue or brown, but in the game, their little pictures (Sprites? I know those things have a technical name…) are different. Savyna's eyes are dark blue, while Xelha's eyes look very yellow to me. Is there an official stance? Because if not, I'm going with the game pictures as opposed to the opening. I would also like to formally thank Rebbe and Toki Kishitani for reviewing.

Look forward to the next chapter! Brief fight scene, and a meeting with some of Seiryah's family! And other things. I can't tell you everything here, can I?


	3. Differences

Second Chapter: Differences

Seiryah padded cautiously behind the other three, and since she wasn't quite up to running, it was difficult to keep them within hearing range. She kept her teeth from chattering by force of will, the tile floor was cold, and without socks or shoes the cold seeped quickly through her feet and legs and spread through the rest of her body. Her body shook with the effort of keeping her jaws still.

_Feh. You think this is bad? Compared to the Ice Cliffs of Gomesia, this is a cakewalk. I know it was colder there…_

_Nope, not helping. Not helping in the slightest. _Probably because she hadn't had a body to get frozen then. She did now.

"Ah!" a female voice screamed. Seiryah identified it as belonging to the other nurse. What had her name been… Janata, wasn't it?

"Jana, I thought I told you to stay down!" Liris snapped, her voice interspersed with several gunshots.

"Wow, I didn't know you carried a pistol, Liris!"

"I didn't… before I started hanging out with you!" Liris teased cheerily. The gunshots continued sporadically, punctuated by the sound of steel striking steel and flesh impacting with flesh. Seiryah bit her lip. She really wanted to help, but if they were shooting at each other, she didn't dare go out there in her condition. With her weakened body, if she got hit she wouldn't have a prayer.

_I'm useless! AGAIN! _she thought, snarling softly aloud before she could stop herself. It had always irked her back when she was bonded with Kalas and Xelha that all she could do was give advice and lend her power. She had never been able to help with the actual fighting…

_Is this all I am destined to be? Worthless baggage that must be protected by others…?_

_No. This is my life… and I will pull my own weight. __I don't care if I get shot, I'm going to help out. I don't want to be on the sidelines anymore!_

With that resolution, she took a single determined step forward…

And nearly walked into an extended knife. Only instincts she hadn't realized she possessed saved her from being skewered as she leaped backwards, landing painfully but on her feet in a good defense position. At least, she thought it was a good defense position. And it probably wouldn't have hurt as much if she had been given shoes… _wonder why Liris didn't give me any?_

The tough's beady eyes widened as he took her in. "Well, well… lookit what we have here…" She did not like the smile he was giving her. No, she did not like it at all. Why was he staring at her chest? The neckline wasn't _that _low…

She looked down and uttered a shriek of mortified fury as her left hand came up and tried to hold the offending garment closed. The attack that had almost hit her heart had lowered the neckline of her modest blouse by about four inches.

"You… cad…" she hissed, giving the man a glare that would have done Kalas proud, but the man ignored it, which only infuriated her further.

"What'cha gonna do about it, girlie? Tell you what… maybe if you scream like you did just now, I'll forget about how much I was paid to kill you." his lecherous grin nearly split his face, only emphasizing the fact that his nose was too big and too round and that his eyes were too small and too close together. "I do like it when they scream…"

"So… you want to hear me scream, do you?" she asked softly, looking at her feet and trying to get her temper under control. _One… two… three…_

His only response was an eager… _eager!... _chuckle, and he started to lumber forward…

However, in the dim light he missed the way her knuckles whitened as she gripped her blouse so hard her fist shook. He missed the fact that when her head snapped up, her eyes were filled with pure rage, not pure terror. He also, somehow, missed the fact that she took a deep breath…

"**I am the Light! The dispeller of Darkness!"** she bellowed at the top of her lungs. A crackling barrier of blue energy surrounded her, and the unfortunate would-be assassin was hurled back several paces. His eyes widened in horror and he babbled some plea for mercy that the young woman didn't hear. A smaller orb of blue light formed centered in the surface of the shield directly in front of her as she brought her hands up, as if in benediction. With a shriek of **"Shining Seraph!"** she brought her arms down in a violent smashing motion across her body. The center of the smaller orb shattered, the shield dissipated…

And a brilliant orb of light smacked down upon her assailant. He crumpled like a sack of rotten meat. Which he was, as far as she was concerned.

Her vision blurred, and she had to clutch the wall for support. What had happened? Why was she suddenly so exhausted? Why…

"Duh, Seiryah, duh…" she moaned under her breath. Of course. Now that she was human, using her Spirit Spells drained her physical and mental energy. She was willing to bet that had she been in perfect health, the spell wouldn't have fazed her, but in such a weakened state…

She snorted at her stupidity. _And I was going to expose myself to _gunfire _like this? I must be crazy! _She looked down the hall, blinking off the afterglare…

And saw Arvel Shida staring at her with an annoyingly bemused expression.

"So, you _do _have the Gift of the Spirit," he said. A short sword was hanging loosely from his left hand as he stared at her in a manner suggesting that many things that had baffled him before were now making sense.

"Gift of the Spirit?" Seiryah repeated. "You mean…" she changed what she had been about to say, "…that light? I don't even know how I did that. What is this… gift?" _A little voice is telling me that saying, "You mean the spell? I've always been able to do that!" might not go over so well here._

Arvel came back to himself with a shake of the head. "Later. I don't know how many there are, so you're just going to have to stick with us. Besides, if you can back us up with those spells, maybe we can finish up before the police come."

"What's a 'police'?" she asked automatically. She had never heard that word before.

"Police is the plural. A policeman… or woman, they do hire women as well… is in charge of keeping the peace in the city, although they are still civilians and do not fight in wars unless drafted."

"Okay, gotcha," Seiryah said, wondering exactly how big this country was that it needed a separate force to keep the peace inside its borders and one to counter threats from without.

Arvel took his attention from their surroundings to look askance at her. "Are you telling me that you know what a city is, what civilians and soldiers are, but you don't know what a policeman is? That's some selective amnesia."

"Isn't it?" Seiryah snapped, too tense to lie. "What are you… Arvel, look out!" She snagged the back of his jacket and managed to shift him with her, despite the fact that he outweighed her by at least seventy-five pounds, to the right of the corridor as another assailant suddenly appeared from the left hand of the intersection they had been approaching and lunged. Or maybe it was that he understood her warning and moved with her. But luckily, whatever the case,the shining sword missed them both completely.

Arvel recovered neatly from his surprise and lunged at the new attacker, but it became clear almost immediately that he was outmatched. Despite the fact that his opponent was almost as short as Liris, he (she? With the hood, and the bulky dark cape the attacker was wearing it was difficult to tell) had the advantage of reach with the longsword he/she was carrying. Also, the cloaked figure was clearly faster than Arvel.

_Why doesn't he just use another Magnus? _Seiryah wondered as she backed up to give the two of them room. Surely he had something better on him than that dinky little short sword. Even a buckler would have been an improvement, he was going to tire pretty quickly if he had to keep leaping backwards instead of blocking…

And then a radical thought came to her: _What if he doesn't have _any_ Magnus?_

It was impossible. Everywhere she had been used Magnus, even the Empire with all their technological advancements still used them. Magnus were the basis of, well, everything. How could he not have…

_Different world, different rules, _she reminded herself glumly. Who said anything had to be the same here? If she could wake up in a little green room with a tube sticking out of her arm, why not a world with no Magnus? Or one with a different language or writing system? Come to think of it, when Kalas had retaught her how to read, hadn't he complained about having to do it _again? _And hadn't he mentioned that she had said that her own world had a different writing system? _That _had taken some quick recovery. She hadn't told her friends exactly how much of her memory was gone, at first because she didn't want Kalas to panic and later, after she had discovered the truth, because she didn't want him to feel guilty that the spell he and Melodia had cast to erase two years of her memory had instead obliterated _all of them._ With a sinking feeling, she realized that she was probably going to wish she had been able to swallow her pride and ask Melodia to remove her spell before she had returned to her homeland.

Something silvery flashing past her face brought her back to reality quickly. Arvel had been disarmed. His opponent rammed the hilt of his/her sword into Arvel's unprotected stomach, and he went down gasping in for breath. "I don't have time for you," hissed the attacker in a velvety voice that only a woman could have. "I'm here for the girl."

Seiryah glared and smiled in what she hoped was a menacing manner. Maybe when this was all over she could practice facial expressions, so she could remember what making them felt like. She hated the way this strange woman said 'girl' as if she were saying 'child'. She couldn't remember being a child, but after everything she'd been through she certainly wasn't one anymore. "I am _not _a girl."

"Oh really? Your blouse says otherwise."

Seiryah didn't look down, but she blushed anyway. She had managed to forget about the damage done to her clothing. Still, that didn't stop her from spitting out, **"I am the Water, hear my voice!"**

The masked figure jerked in surprise. "We weren't told…!"

"**Sacred Spring!" **Bubbles burst around the woman, cutting her skin like knives, and she screamed in agony. Once all the bubbles were gone, she dropped to the floor like a marionette with its strings cut. Seiryah fell to her knees, too tired to remain standing. She thought she heard Arvel call her name worriedly before she blacked out…

* * *

_She was in a cell, she could tell that much. Only a cell would have bars on the doors. There were no windows, which probably meant she was underground, and probably in some utterly remote region in the Unclaimed Lands as well. Beautiful. Just freaking beautiful._

_She was lying on her stomach, her back was a mass of bandages and ointment, and a piece of dark blue cloth had been wrapped around her waist to preserve her modesty. _Damn considerate of them, _she thought bitterly.She gave a prayer of silent thanks that there were no mirrors in her tiny cell, she did _not _want to see the damage done to her back. It would heal eventually, after all, she couldn't _die_, no, of course not. She needed to be alive for…_

_She shuddered. She couldn't continue the line of thought. She was a coward, pure and simple. A coward that skulked in shadow. Maybe if she'd been a little braver, a little more decisive, they'd all still be alive…_

"_This is just me wasting time. I just don't want to think about it, any of it." And she didn't. She didn't want to think about how her father had screamed as he had burned alive, how her shield had grown smaller and smaller as the flames had pounded it… how her mother, her brother, her older sister had perished…_

_And she did not want to think about how her youngest sister, seven-year-old Alvira had been dragged away as she screamed in rage and agony, injured too badly to move. No, she did not want to think about that. Not at all..._

_The fools who had taken her thought her trapped. They knew nothing of what it meant to be Veranen. She could no longer save Alvira, but at least she could stop them from having her._

_Slowly, painfully, she raised her thumb to her mouth as skin that was bleeding and blistered broke open yet again. Once her thumb was to her mouth, she bit down on it as hard as she could, hard enough to draw blood. Then she dragged her left arm over and started to draw a six-pointed star in a circle sideways on the back of her left hand, ignoring the screams of protest from her back and shoulders. She could not physically leave the cell, but that did not mean that she couldn't escape. It was a gambler's way out, a fool's way out. But then again, was she not both?_

_She winced at the encircled star she had made, a wobbly, pathetic thing. She spat on her hand, wiped it off to the best of her ability, and tried again. If it didn't work properly, she could wind up as a wandering spirit for the rest of eternity. Of course, that might happen if it worked, too. Making contracts with the divinities was always a risky business…_

_

* * *

_

Her eyes opened slowly, she felt very groggy, as if she had not slept for ages. Knowing that that was not true, she forced herself upright. She had no time to laze around, for all she knew, the only people in this twisted world of wires and white could be…

Sunlight streamed through the window, briefly blinding but a pleasant change from the harsh artificial light. She looked around her room, blinking owlishly, trying to keep the details of her dream in mind, but they vanished like smoke on the breeze. Only the vauge knowledge that she had been kept in a cell somewhere remained. And the symbol she had scrawled on her hand.

"Paper…" she moaned, clawing at her nightstand. Surely there was paper somewhere…?

"Good morning, Seiryah!" Liris said cheerily from the door. She was holding a rectangular piece of brown wood and holding a pen.

"Do you have paper?" Seiryah asked desperately.

"Well, I have my medical charts, but… hey, give those back! I need those! Gimmie my clipboard! You're going to get me into even more trouble…!" Seiryah had bounded out of bed, snatched the wooden rectangle…clipboard?... from Liris's hands, flipped over the paper, and drawn the hexagram from her dream.

"Do you know what this means?" she asked desperately, shoving the … yes, it _did _have a metal clasp to keep the papers in place; it must be the clipboard… back in Liris's face.

"Eh… a hexagram? Seiryah, this is used in some rituals to contact the gods! Where did you see it?"

"A dream," Seiryah said curtly, and then proceeded to describe what she _could _remember. Liris's face got darker at every word.

"Seiryah, that must have been a divine contract of some sort. If that even really happened, there's a strong possibility that it was just a dream and nothing more. But if it did, drawing up such a contract is strictly forbidden, and impossible for anyone that doesn't have the Gift of the Spirit. You mustn't tell anyone else about that dream, not even Arvel or Mihkal. Promise me!"

"Okay, I promise! You have my word," Seiryah said quickly. "Um, can I ask you another question?"

"Sure," Liris said. She visibly braced herself. _Probably preparing for another bombshell… _Seiryah thought ruefully. Well, this question should be simple enough…

"Who is Alvira?"

Liris winced. "Alvira… is your youngest sister. Do you remember her at all? Red-gold hair, big blue eyes, and the most adorable smile… she was the cutest little seven-year-old you've ever seen."

Seiryah was no fool, and she did not miss the past tense. "You said _was, _Liris. What happened to her?"

Liris bit her lip and looked away. "Isn't that the million sena question?" she muttered under her breath.

"I _heard _that, Liris. What is a sena, and why are you avoiding my question?"

"A sena is our currency. Money. Stuff you give to other people in exchange for things you want or services you need preformed," Liris said quickly, pouncing on the question that she did want to answer. "This is a ten sena note. See?" As if desperate to change the subject, she pulled a piece of paper out of the pocket of her white uniform and handed it quickly to Seiryah. It was an off white color with green ink, a dragon on one side and a picture of a man on the other. There was a bunch of notation all over the thing that looked like writing. Seiryah suppressed a groan. They _did _use a different writing system here! She was going to have to learn how to read and write _all over again!_ She thought of all that precious wasted time and shuddered.

_And I'm letting Liris change the subject, again. This is too important to let her get away with that!_

"Liris," she said softly, forcing the shorter woman to look into her silver eyes. She hoped that she was giving the other woman a piercing look. She really had to start practicing facial expressions the first opportunity she got. "I need to know this. What happened to Alvira?"

"She… disappeared. One year ago. The day of the accident." The words came slowly, as if they were being dragged out of her. "Of course, a lot of bodies were found charred beyond recognition. Some of them were child-sized."

"_Bodies?"_ Seiryah whispered, a horrified whisper. War-ravaged Mintaka hovered before her eyes for a moment before she forcibly dispelled it. Now that she had a stomach, if she thought too long on that, she would probably throw up. Xelha certainly had. Not all the corpses on the ground that day had belonged to Imperial soldiers… "What happened, Liris?"

"I…" they were interrupted by a woman's voice shouting irritably.

"…awake, than she can have visitors! I have the right! I demand to see her!"

"But, she's in a very unstable condition right now!" came the weak protest. Seiryah didn't recognize the male voice, but that wasn't all that surprising. She had gotten a bit of a feel for the size of this… hospital… when she had trailed Arvel Shida, Mihkal Falharden, and Liris the previous night. _At least, I hope it was the previous night… _And she had the sinking feeling that it was quite possibly very large, not as big as some of the castles she had been in, but close.

"All the more reason that I be allowed in! The child needs guidance and reassurance in her… condition." The way the woman said the word 'condition', you would think that the man she was talking to was personally responsible for it. Seiryah wondered if the woman had anything to do with her. Judging by the tightness around Liris's eyes and the way her lips had compressed in displeasure, Seiryah was guessing a resounding 'yes'.

"How did that miserable, conniving old witch find out so quickly…?" Liris muttered, exasperated. "Of all people, it just _had _to be _her_!"

"Who is she?" Seiryah asked, getting off the bed. She noticed that she was now wearing a red blouse instead of the ruined blue one. She would have to thank Liris later, she had a feeling that she did not want to meet her new guest while exposing half her bosom.

"Saishra Sheyol. She's…" Liris's mouth snapped shut the moment the door opened.

In glided… glided was really the only word for it… a woman in her late fifties or early sixties, whose black curls had turned almost completely a steely gray. Her face was still remarkably smooth, and her gray eyes seemed to gleam silver as she glared at Liris. She was dressed simply in a pale green blouse and a dark green skirt, both of which appeared to be made of high quality material, and she wore a strand of pearls around her throat. Several other people made to follow the woman in, but she kept them outside with a sharp glare and a gesture. There was something cold about her, especially her eyes. Seiryah could almost imagine the wheels turning as she calculated every detail of her surroundings, something that brought her mental guards up.

"You will leave us now, girl," Saishra Sheyol said to Liris. "Be sure to shut the door behind you."

"Stay, Liris," Seiryah said, gesturing for Liris to take the only chair in the room. She liked Liris, and had no intentions of allowing her to be bossed around like a servant. This woman was an unknown, a chilly unknown, and emanated a… presence of someone used to getting her way. Baffled, Liris shot her a look that was a mix of confused and grateful, and took the seat. The stranger had tried to boss around someone who might have been her friend and could be so again; she would stand. "Now, I believe that you were informed of my… condition. So if you would do me the favor of telling me who you are, ma'am?"

The woman's shocked look was priceless, and Liris's face went carefully blank in the manner of a person choking back a grin. "I am the Grand Duchess Saishra Sheyol! I… you don't remember me, do you, child?" Something slipped through her cold exterior. Sadness. Suddenly, Saishra realized that the woman's wavy curls and silvery-gray eyes were so striking… because they were identical to her own.

"How closely are we related?" Seiryah asked.

"I am your grandmother, child. Your mother's mother."

"Then why isn't she with you? Or my father? What about my siblings? I know I have at least one… where are they?" Part of her wanted to bite off her tongue, but she had to know. Her need to know far outweighed her hatred of being so… pathetic.

Her grandmother sighed. "They're dead, child. There was an accident. A subway train… that's something we use to get around the city in, I'll have to show them to you, I don't know how to describe them… malfunctioned and exploded. You and your parents and siblings were on an outing that day, and in the area… you are the only one who survived."

"What about Alvira?" she murmured softly.

The older woman started. "You remember her?"

"Only a little. What about Alvira?" she asked again, stubbornly.

"No one found her body, Seiryah. The flames were…very hot. She could have been simply burned to ash."

Vaporized. Nothing left to bury. Gone.

But what about that dream? That Seiryah had been certain that Alvira was alive, and being held captive somewhere. Most of the details of the dream had faded into obscurity, but that remained. That, and the knife-sharp pain she had only felt once before; the agony of betrayal.

Seiryah decided to file the dream away. She would have to find Alvira on her own. Somehow.

"It was a horrible accident, Seiryah, but we're all grateful that you survived. I'm sure that your memory will return in time."

"I hope so… may I call you Grandmother?"

"Of course," Saishra Sheyol replied, a warm smile temporarily dispelling the coldness that seemed to cling to her like a cloak. "Would you like to meet the rest of your family? They're waiting outside. Members of both sides of the family," she added almost as an afterthought. That fact seemed to displease her for some reason, but Liris looked relieved. Was there some sort of bad blood between Liris and her mother's side of the family? Why would that… unless…

"You said you were a… duchess, Grandmother?"

"Yes. Ah… you wouldn't know what that is, would you? I'd be happy to explain," she said. There was something far too eager about her tone, and Seiryah was suddenly and vividly reminded of the Imperial Elite of Alfard.

"No, I think I remember that much. Am I a… duchess too?" _Please, Great whale, Mighty Ocean, Eternal Time, and whatever gods exist in this world DON'T make me a duchess! Anything but a duchess! Better a princess, or a queen, or ANYTHING but Melodia's hereditary title!_

"No, you are a Veranen, and a Countess. You'd be a Countess and the High Seat of your house if it weren't for the accident."

It took conscious effort not to sigh in relief. She wasn't a duchess like Melodia. Thank the gods for small miracles.

But she was still a noble. A noble! A Countess! A _Countess!_ At least she wasn't High Seat of her house, whatever the hell that meant. And she wasn't a Duchess. There was that much.

If Kalas ever found out, he would never, ever let her live it down.

_Not like I'm ever going to see him again… _She crushed that thought ruthlessly. She wasn't going to fall into despair. Not now. Not after so much…

"Um… I have things I need to do. Make my rounds, and things. And you probably want to meet the rest of your family, don't you Seiryah?"

"I don't think that that's…" the duchess started.

"Oh, _do _stay, Liris. You were one of the first people I met when I woke up, and it is so very nice to have a familiar face around when meeting so many new people!" Seiryah said quickly, throwing an arm around Liris so she couldn't escape.

"I'm going to _kill_ you. This will be worse than unpleasant. Do you know how horrible this is going to be? Sheyols and Veranens trying to be _nice _to each other?" Liris hissed incredulously through what Seiryah thought was supposed to be a grateful smile. It looked more like a grimace.

"Which is why I want someone around who I know I can trust who will tell me who is lying and who isn't," Seiryah whispered back, smiling cheerily. Liris looked somewhat mollified by the praise, but she still had a cornered expression. "Besides, they're family? How bad can it possibly be?" she wondered softly, shoving a most unhelpful image of Lyude's elder siblings, Skeed and Vallye, leveling their guns at his head out of her mind. Things couldn't possibly get _that_ bad. After all, she wasn't defying whoever ruled this country.

She opened the door…

* * *

AN: Yes, that's the end of the chapter. I AM that evil! But wasn't that a fun chapter?

Next up, tentatively titled Of Foxes and Falcons: Meet more of Seiryah's family Watch in awe as they somehow avoid tearing each other's throats out! And other things, of course. Will Liris fulfill her threat to kill Seiryah? Tune in next time!

God, I sound like a cheesy commercial announcer…


	4. Of Foxes and Falcons

AN: Sorry this is moving so slowly, but this is the sort of story that _demands _more of a slow pace, since it's told from the main character's viewpoint and you find out everything along with her. Now we can get started with everyone's favorite thing: Family Feuds!

Third Chapter: Of Foxes and Falcons

What was waiting beyond that door was not exactly what Seiryah had expected.

There were about eight people clustered in two knots of four each, glaring at each other. Both men and women alike wore formal coats. Those on the right had bright red hair, excepting one blonde, blue-eyed woman who appeared to be the leader, had white coats with golden birds flaring at their shoulders, while those on the left had black or dark brown hair and green coats with some sort of four-legged animal in red-brown that she'd never seen before. Although, it did look vaguely like a Bunnycat. And the golden birds really didn't look that much like Bluebirds of Happiness, but that was her only reference point.

Bunnycats and Bluebirds of Happiness. Somehow, she didn't think that the present company would find much humor in that. So, instead of thinking of that and risk bursting into laughter, she instead focused on the individual people in the hallway.

The nearest to her, a woman in her early twenties wearing the four-legged animals on her shoulders, also seemed to hold the least hostility. Black curls framed a mellow face, and instead of seeming like steel sharp enough to cut, her silvery-gray eyes seemed more like… reflections off of slow-running water, somehow. Calm, but with a lot more underneath the surface than one might think. When her eyes fell upon Seiryah, a smile blossomed on her features. In addition to the animals at her shoulders, morning glories climbed up her sleeves. Seiryah filed that away and decided to ask Liris about the significance of them later on.

"It is good to see you up, cousin," she greeted warmly, walking over to Seiryah and hugging her. "I have missed you. It is so hard to find someone who appreciates good books."

Her voice and movement drew the others from their glaring match, and seven sets of eyes glared at them in disapproval. Something in the glare of the three remaining who bore the animals on their shoulder said that they disapproved of the display of emotion, while those with the golden birds seemed simply to disapprove of the woman. _And all other animals fade away when Foxes and Falcons come to play._ That sounded like a broken piece of a lullaby or nursery rhyme that had been dragged out from behind Melodia's seal. She quietly memorized it and turned her attention back to the people surrounding her. They were more important than some children's stories.

The other three who bore the animals on their shoulders were all men, ranging from the ages of about sixteen or seventeen by her guess to maybe seventy at the outer end. All had the same gray-silver eyes that Seiryah herself did, and all of them seemed to be calculating for some reason. The four people on the right, in comparison, were almost all women for some reason, the only male smiling cheerily at her.

"Why so confused, little cousin?" he asked, breaking the somewhat awkward silence. "You'd almost think that you didn't remember Maisra. As if you couldn't, the way you two were always off chatting about some monster of a book…" he grimaced at that, although whether for the length of the book or for the company, she couldn't tell.

"I don't," she said, knowing it was a mistake as soon as the words had left her mouth, but plowing on anyway. She didn't want to insult… Maisra, Maisra Sheyol. Perhaps another friend in this strange world? "I don't remember anything. I'm… sorry."

"Really?" asked a regal and stern-looking woman in her mid forties, who seemed to be the leader of the Bird People (Seiryah decided that calling them Bird People and Animal People would make things easier to keep track of in her own head.) Her blue eyes were cold enough to rival the Animal People, pale azure ice as opposed to piercing steel. "We had heard, but… that is a shame. I… _we_…" she nodded her head to indicate those standing with her, but clearly not those standing on the opposite side of the hall, '…are sorry for your losses. Have you been told about your family?" Her voice was comforting, but her eyes… ice. Cold enough to make Wazn feel like Alfard.

"Yes. I accept your condolences." She bit off a sarcastic _in the manner that they were given_ that tried to tack itself onto the end of the sentence. This woman seemed to be as powerful in her own way as Saishra was in her own house. She was also the only one of the bird people to wear jewelry, a string of red stones that she knew weren't rubies set in gold. Instead of morning glories climbing up the white sleeves of her coat, red roses that matched her hair color perfectly seemed to arch stately towards the golden birds on her shoulders. What _did _the designs at the hems mean?

She cast around for her grandmother, and found the woman standing behind her, observing her actions. Why?

"I believe that we should put pleasantries aside, Melindrha, and decide who will help reacclimatize Seiryah to life here. After all, for one such as her, there are many pitfalls here in Daisra." Her tone left no question as to who would be doing _that_: Saishra Sheyol, naturally, or someone handpicked by her. What was Daisra? The country she was in, or maybe a city. Surely a city at the very least; she could not picture any of these people deciding to live in anything small enough to be called a town.

"I believe that should be left to us," Melindrha Veranen said coldly.

"Really? I am her closest living relative with her parents dead. By law, her care should be left to me."

Melindrha snorted. "Really, Saishra, Seiryah is not of your house. Someone of her house should have her education, not an outsider like yourself."

Saishra smiled a chilly smile to mach Melindrha's eyes, "Really, Melindrha, you would think I meant to turn her against you. Why so suspicious? I only have my granddaughter's best interests at heart."

Liris mumbled something, the first words she had spoken since being dragged into the hall. Seiryah didn't catch all of it, but she did hear something about the sun turning green, in sarcastic tones. Seiryah had to agree with the sentiment. Even though Saishra Sheyol was her grandmother, she knew someone with an agenda when she saw one.

"If I may speak?" Maisra asked, raising her voice once again. Even though her face remained placid as ever, her eyes had changed. Silvery light reflected off of rushing rapids. She continued without waiting for either of the women to give her the permission she had requested. "I believe that in a situation such as this it would be best to bring in a third, neutral party. After all, we of houses Sheyol and Veranen have been at one another's throats since the founding of this kingdom eleven hundred and four years ago. It is unrealistic to expect either of us… don't look at me like that Melindrha, Vanyel, Deirdre, Aisra, you Veranen pretend to be pure enough, and I guess some of you are, but you can manipulate right along with us foxes when you feel it necessary."

"Do you have any… suggestions, girl?" Saishra asked through gritted teeth.

Maisra smiled as if she had missed the emphasis on 'girl', but Seiryah wouldn't have bet a Rotten Food magnus on it. "Why, Liris Reina has been her roommate ever since she left her parents' home about three years ago. Furthermore, as the daughter of the esteemed Doctor Galinet Reina – and probably the only person who knows where he is, since his retirement – she might possibly be the best choice for helping Seiryah to recover her memories. And I know how eager we all are to have our Seiryah back as she was before." Everything sounded straightforward and devoid of sarcasm, but Seiryah thought she detected a hint of irony in the last sentence. Every set of eyes seemed to lock on Liris as soon as her last name was mentioned. Instead of hanging back as she had been for the entire conversation, she returned their glares with equal venom.

"I would be more than happy to help," she said, twisting her lips in something that might have been a smile.

"Now hold on just a minute, girl, do you honestly think that we are going to just _let _you…"

"Excuse me, Aunt Saishra, but unless I miscount, Seiryah is twenty years old as of… three months and nine days ago. Under the law, she has the right to decide. So, what do you want to do, cousin?"

"I want Liris to take me home," she said, knowing that her answer wouldn't please anyone there. Scowls blossomed on several faces but diminished somewhat in intensity as they realized that the other side had failed to procure what they were after. Maisra's face was neutral, but her eyes seemed to dance as if she had won a great victory, and perhaps she had. Although, with the way the other Sheyols werelooking at her, Seiryah hoped that the woman would be careful in the immediate future; her family was _not _happy with her at the moment.The boy with the Veranens looked relieved for some reason. Maybe because this way she was free? Another potential ally?

"Fine, but I do have a stipulation. A reasonable stipulation," Saishra said.

"Ask _me_ and I will answer," Seiryah replied. She wished they would stop talking over her head. She had lost her _memories_, not her wits.

"You are to spend one day of each week with your respective families to relearn our traditions," Saishra replied, as if taken aback slightly at being challenged."That is not too much of an imposition, is it granddaughter?"

"…I think that is for the best," Seiryah agreed. Truly she did need to learn some of Sheyol and Veranen, before one orthe other or bothmanaged to drag her down. Maybe from Maisra and… Vanyel? That sounded like a boy's name the only remotely masculine name that Maisra had brought up when she listed the Veranens, and surely her other cousin seemed much more pleasant company than any of the other Veranens that had come to see her.

Melindrha scowled again. "What need has she to learn of Sheyol? She is not of your house, Saishra, and…"

"Oh _do _give over, Mother, you sound like a broken record…" Vanyel(?) sighed, rolling his eyes. "Saishra made her decision, and you have to live with it. Whether you like it or not."

Melindrha glared at her son, and Seiryah felt briefly sorry for the boy. Melindrha Veranen didn't seem like a woman to be crossed lightly. "That is enough, Vanyel. You speak out of place."

"My most humble apologies, my lady Mother," Vanyel(hah! She had guessed right!) replied, sweeping a grandiose bow and kissing her hand. He tossed Maisra of all people a roguish wink, and she rolled her eyes at him.

Seiryah heard Liris this time: "The day he's humble, the sun really _will _turn green!"

The assembled people exchanged barbed comments and veiled threats for a few more minutes and then departed. Vanyel waved cheerily at her, while Maisra came over and gave her another hug.

"Call me if you need anything," Maisra whispered in Seiryah's ear. "You should still have my number in your phone book. Ask Liris for help if you can't remember how to use the phone."

"I will," Seiryah replied, briefly wondering what a 'phone' was. "By the way, who were all the people here? Not everyone said anything."

"Ah… I'm sorry, but I can't stay and tell you about them, they'll get suspicious if I stay here talking too long and they're angry enough with me already for derailing their precious plans. Ask Liris, she should know most of them. Talk to you later!" With another hug and a warm smile, Maisra followed her family out.

Liris blinked several times. "I can't believe Maisra got away with that. Probably because it's so rare to see her outside of the library that they've all forgotten what her voice sounds like."

"Why didn't you tell me that we were living together?" Seiryah asked.

"Well, between all your questions and all the unexpected things that happened, I never really got a chance."

"Then… we were friends?"

Liris snorted. "Your parents helped me out when I first came to the city – alone, thanks to that worthless father of mine – to be a nurse. We've known each other since I was eighteen and you were fifteen. Yes, we're friends, Seiryah. We have been for years." Liris laughed bitterly. "Really, I should strangle Arvel. If I could figure out exactly what's going on, that is."

Seiryah still remembered the conversation she had eavesdropped upon, and made a mental not to ask Arvel exactly what was going on the next time she saw him. "By the way, where is Arvel?"

"At work. He's a reporter, or all things," Liris sniffed. "Amazing that he was able to keep his job after that debacle eighteen months ago."

"What's a reporter?" Seiryah asked, deciding to shelve her questions on her relatives for a little while. After all, she could always ask Maisra on the …'phone'… later on. After she figured out what a phone was. And how to use it.

AN: Did anyone else find the Bluebirds of Happiness/Bunycats analogy as funny as I did? Ooh, idea! Can anyone think of an animal I can compare to a Greythorne?

By the way, a note on Seiryah's world: It is a lot like ours, although different in some ways. Like religion. And some exotic plants/animals that I made up. And magic. Can't forget the magic. And government…

I'm trying to keep the differences to a minimum, which leaves me with a lot less things to explain.

So, the big family meeting. Surprisingly calm. No one blowing each other up with guns, although don't think that they wouldn't have been doing so if they had been given the chance and a way to get away with it. Sheyols and Veranens HATE each other. Think Montagues and Capulets, if you've ever read Romeo and Juliet.

What did you all think of Maisra and Vanyel(Yes, I stole the name from Mercedes Lackey. Bite me.)? They're probably going to become important characters, in case you didn't figure that out on your own. Maisra is going to be the one who teaches Seiryah how to read and write again, I know that much.

Special thanks to Frozenleaf, Toki, and Rebbe for reviewing!

Next Chapter: A little more on Arvel and Mihkal, and some revealing of the Super Secret conspiracy. I don't have a title. Yet.

(Sorry this chapter was so much shorter than the last one, but you got a faster update. Doesn't that make you happy?)


	5. Questions

I know this was a slower update than the others, but life and mild writer's block happened.

Fourth Chapter: Questions

"Are you sure you're ready, Seiryah?" Liris asked.

"Yes, I am. I want to go home," Seiryah said simply. She no longer wished to be in the room with the beeping machines, even though she now knew what they did, or anywhere else in the 'hospital'. She knew now that the hospital was a place of healing, she was still sensitive enough to the pain and death of the place that she wished to leave as soon as possible. Even if there really were… thousands… of people in this city, Daisra. She was used to thinking in terms of hundreds at the outer end. Thousands was… mind-boggling.

Liris took her arm, and they stepped outside…

People _swarmed_. Swarmed was really the only term to describe it. They were everywhere, Like insects. Buildings reared into the sky, ten, twenty, fifty stories high, casting shadows that shaded the entire street. The noise of the city was a dull roar that filled her ears and made her head ring. Some trees had been planted along the sidewalk, to give the artificial monster a feel of life. The trees had red and gold leaves. Seiryah wondered if that was natural, or if it was simply autumn. It was certainly cold enough to be autumn, and she was grateful for the coat that Liris had loaned her, even if it was clearly too small.

"This is the New City. The Old City isn't as crowded or noisy."

"Is that where we live?" Seiryah asked hopefully. There was enough noise here for the entire world put together. People were talking to each other, and sometimes into little devices in their hands, as if they couldn't stand to be alone and think for a few minutes. _Cars_ – metal contraptions made to transport people lumbered along in the road, although traffic was dominated by special yellow cars called _taxis _that were just for transporting people within the city for cash and _trucks – _which carried supplies, like food.

She only knew this because Liris had told her, of course.

"No, you have to be really rich or of noble blood to live in the Old City… Don't look at me like that, Seirie, _you _were the person who wanted to see what it would be like to live like a commoner so badly. That's why you moved in with me. Seiryah? You okay?"

"I'm fine…"

"_Seirie!" exclaimed a little girl, no older than four, with enormous blue eyes and red-gold braided pigtails. She was dressed in a red sundress and a pair of white shoes. "Piggie back ride!"_

"_Really?" asked a younger Seiryah with a grin, kneeling down to allow her sister to clamber onto her. "Well, if that's what my lady commands…"_

_The small child, Alvira, giggled as she climbed on her sister's back. "You soun like Cousin Van'el."_

_Seiryah's smile turned wry. "I suppose I do. Guess I'm spending too much time with him…"_

_Alvira laughed again, and Seiryah decided that it was one of the happiest sounds she had ever heard…_

"…just fine…"

Liris looked at her skeptically. "Are you sure? You went all spacey on me for a few moments."

"Not a big deal. Just a scrap of a memory," Seiryah replied, shrugging her shoulders. "It was about Alvira," she added, noticing Liris's curious look. "Say, Liris?"

"Um, what?"

"Do you know anything about Alvira? About where she might be now, I mean?"

Liris stared at Seiryah for a few minutes. "Alvira is dead, Seiryah. No one found her body, but she's dead."

Seiryah shook her head. "No, she's alive. I'm sure of it."

Liris snorted. "What makes you so certain? Don't tell me it's that dream, we don't even know if that really ha…"

"What dream?" asked a familiar male voice. Both women rounded on the speaker as one, but Arvel held up his hands and smiled disarmingly, "Woah, I come in peace! Take it easy with the evil glares!" He was dressed in much the same manner as he had been last night, a black trench coat and dark slacks, with the coat hanging open to reveal a rumpled white shirt. Seiryah wondered if he'd slept in his clothes.

Seiryah's expression softened. Of all the people to drop in on them, Arvel was one of the ones she wanted to see most. "Ah, Arvel. I actually wanted to see you."

A slow smile spread across Arvel's face, and Liris glared at him a little. "Well, that's what I ditched work to do. Have any more questions, Seiryah?"

Seiryah bit her lip. He seemed so happy… _no. I need to know this._

"What do you know about my accident, Arvel? What did you mean about House Sheyol, last night?"

Arvel's face darkened. "So you _were _listening in. I was wondering how you got to all the trouble so quickly."

Seiryah simply stared at him.

Arvel sighed. "Fine, I'll tell you. But not here." He jerked a thumb at the general area, and the two girls noticed that people were beginning to stop and stare at them. Seiryah blinked. One of those people staring at them had rather large cat ears. She made a mental note to ask Liris about that later on. "Liris, if you would be so kind…?"

Liris scowled openly at him. "Oh, very well. Back to our place it is." She then turned to Seiryah, "Don't listen to everything he says. He's crazy, as far as I'm concerned. And irresponsible. And…"

Arvel let the tirade wash over him as they walked. Something in the way he carried himself said that he thought he deserved it.

* * *

Rage. Rage filled his mind, warmed his blasted soul. It anchored him, kept him whole. It consumed him slowly.

The girl. He hated the girl, her pale skin, her false innocence, and how thoroughly she had deceived him, manipulated him. She had cost him everything.

He hated the Raven, the boy that never should have existed. The failure that had risen from fire and ash time and time again to haunt him, and eventually to kill him.

To a lesser extent, he hated the sun-haired thief, the witch girl who had posed as a maid and made a mess of his plans from the moment she laid her grubby hands on the Earth Sphere.

He also hated the Spirit. He had not been aware of the Spirit until after his second birth, when he had joined with the earth and risen from the lava as something far greater than human. As a spirit himself, he had been able to see her, a flame-haired woman dressed in bandages and rags. He hated her from the depths of his soul, the almost holy being who had shielded his murderer, strengthened the filthy Raven. Surely without her help the malformed brat would have died long ago. She, at least, would not escape him. He had her name now; he had followed her home, where she was weak, mortal, and alone.

He may not be able to strike back at the others, but he would have his revenge against Seiryah.

And then, from across the void: "If it is Seiryah Veranen you seek, I would be happy to help you…"

* * *

They had traveled on the 'subway', which was an underground 'train'. A 'train' had been described to her as 'something like a bunch of compartments linked together and dragged on a set of tracks by an engine.'

Frankly, she had been less confused _before _the explanation. It looked like some sort of Imperial contraption, and it would take her where she wanted to go. That was all she needed to know for the moment. She could figure things out for herself later.

They walked into the cars, sat down in uncomfortable seats, and Seiryah spent the next several minutes watching as the concrete tunnel passed her by at impossible speeds. It was fascinating, and a little frightening. Now that she had seen a bit of Daisra, all it had done was underscore how little she knew of her own homeland. _Looks like getting used to living here again is going to be every bit as much an adventure as anything I did in Kalas's world. _As she reflected on what she had overheard from Arvel's rant the previous night, she had to add, _if I survive long enough, that is._

The train came to a halt and the doors opened with a hissing sound of released air.

"This is our stop," Liris announced, her cheeriness sounding only partially forced. "Come on! I can't wait to show you everything!"

Seiryah followed as Liris half-dragged her off the train, with an amused Arvel following. Seiryah looked around and saw another person, a woman, with cat ears and this time a tail as well, dancing as a man with enormous ears of some animal she couldn't recognize played a stringed instrument. People would stop to look and listen for a while and sometimes drop coins or pieces of paper (_sena, Seiryah, sena. That's money here. Remember that.)_ into a rather battered hat that sat at the man's feet.

"Um… Liris?"

"Yeah, Seiryah?"

"What are… those people?" she asked, jerking her head over in the direction of the performers.

"Huh? Oh, they're Yena. Explaining exactly what they are would take a while, but they're basically people with some animal blood in them. I'll tell you about it in detail later on. After all…" she continued, her voice turning acidic, "I'm sure Arvel is very, _very _busy. He should probably be heading back to work soon. If Mihkal keeps covering for him, they're _both_ going to lose their jobs. Although why Arvel still has his, I'll never know. One wonders what he must have had to do to keep it, what with his wild fantasies. Perhaps…"

"Liris," Arvel said calmly enough, his green eyes hardening. "I would like you to stop insinuating…things. Please." It sounded more like an order than a request with the way he said it, but Liris snarled something incomprehensible at him, and changed the subject again, ignoring him pointedly. It was clear that the short blonde woman blamed Arvel for Seiryah's condition. Seiryah briefly entertained herself with the idea of telling them about Melodia, just to see what would happen. She continued to entertain herself with images of Liris and Arvel kicking the stuffing out of the Miran duchess as they made their way to a particular glass and stonemonstrosity, not as tall as the others she had seen before. Even though she had helped to save Melodia, it was hard for her to let go of her hatred for the other woman, the one who had manipulated her by erasing her memories and had turned Kalas against her.

* * *

Melodia shuddered as she looked at the massive pile of paperwork She hated paperwork with a passion!

But damage needed to be repaired, even in Mira, protected though it was by the warp in dimensions that surrounded it. And in order to repair damage, one had to pay the various people who repaired that damage; the carpenters, the masons, and thousands of other miscellaneous costs. All of which needed the duke's approval before gold could be taken from the treasury to finance it. And since her grandfather needed some time to recover from the strain of the war, Melodia had volunteered to help with the work. The _paper_work.

What on Earth had she been thinking?

She felt a burst of malicious intent before it faded again. Like someone was glaring at her back and wanted her dead. Which was understandable, probably almost every person outside of Mira, and a fair number within, had harbored that sentiment at some point in time. But this was the feeling of someone hating her personally…

Shoving the feeling out of her mind (probably her imagination and her conscience, both of which had been annoyingly overactive lately) she ran through the numbers. Damage to Mira itself had been minimal, compared to other countries like Diadem and Alfard. In fact, most of the damage to the island had been caused when the continents returned to the Earth, not by Malpercio's minions. The war had disrupted trade, however, and Mira was running low on any food that did not contain sugar. Even in the manor itself, meat was rare. At the rate things were going, the people in Balanicore were going to find out what Hograt tasted like. Although people had already begun to cultivate the new lands, food would take some time to grow. They desperately needed to import food from somewhere. Probably Sadal Suud, the only continent that had been largely spared Malpercio's wrath.

Melodia rubbed her temples. It was about five days since Malpercio's defeat and a little less than three since Seiryah had left for her own world, and already the problems were cropping up like Mirage Weed in Detronue. A rather apt comparison, as well. Mirage Weed was almost possible to kill...

The young duchess raked a hand through her now teal hair and smiled bitterly. If the only consequence of trying to destroy the world was _paperwork_, than she must have gotten off easy.

A smashing noise drew Melodia's attention to the other side of her bedroom. A perfume bottle had fallen off her dresser. Her _only_ bottle of perfume had fallen off the dresser and shattered on the floor. A strong smell of lilacs permeated the room as the perfume soaked into her carpet, blanching it to an almost-white. She sighed. Now she was going to have _that _replaced too, sooner or later. The manor servants hovered over her like mother hens ever since she had returned, and they wouldn't allow her to keep a stained carpet, even if it was only one small spot in a room that no one entered but her. She wondered if she could drag a chair over to hide it without being too obvious…

Melodia blinked, suddenly remembering that she had put the perfume bottle nowhere near the edge of the dresser. The only way it could have fallen off would have been if someone had picked it up and dropped it. And since she had gone nowhere near the dresser for at least an hour…

Melodia drew a magnus from the holster attached to her leg and hidden beneath her dress and a black fluted staff appeared in her hand. She pulled out several other magnus, a pair of Dark Flare level IV's, an Aqua Burst V, as Sacred Wine, a Sleet Shawl and a Chronos Blow V as her eyes darted around the room. Surely there had to be someone there. Bottles did not get up and throw themselves onto the ground.

"Hello?" she called out hesitantly, still scanning her room. No one was there, not that she could see. She stood there for several more moments, feeling more and more foolish as the seconds inched by. Could she have been mistaken about where she had put the perfume bottle? No, impossible. She wore no makeup, the things that she did have out were there only so that her grandfather could pretend that she was a normal teenage girl. The single cosmetic that she did wear was that perfume. Ever since finding out exactly _how _she had survived the plague that killed her parents, she had worn it. It helped to cover up the (imagined, she was nearly positive) faint reek of a corpse.

Melodia relaxed slightly, the fluted rod she used to focus her magic while fighting lowering a few inches. Maybe she _was_ jumping at shadows…

A crunching noise brought her right back to full alert. Someone had stepped on the glass. Her reaction was instantaneous, with only the tiniest tinge of regret as her practical side thought of _exactly_ how much it was going to cost to fix her room once this was over…

"**Chronos Blow!"**

**

* * *

**

Liris's apartment… _her _apartment… seemed nice enough. A brief glance told her thatthere was a kitchen, a sitting area, two bedrooms and a bathroom. Even though there was a counter with stools instead of a table for dinner, and the sitting area had a boxlike machine called a 'computer' and what she _thought _was supposed to be a piano crammed in with the couch and the 'television', there was a feeling to it that she could only describe as 'home'.

Arvel took a seat on the couch, a massive overstuffed but comfortable looking piece of furniture. Something in the way he sat there told Seiryah that he had sat there many times before, which didn't make sense, given Liris's attitude towards him. She filed this away in her growing mental box of 'things to investigate on my own'. Something told her that neither party would respond well to the question of 'Why do you two hate each other so much?'

"What do you want to ask about first, Seiryah?" Arvel asked.

She considered this for a moment. "How did I meet you, anyway?"

A small grin flickered across Arvel's features. "You were working as a waitress in a café not far from here. Although your hair was dyed brown and you were going by Kaisa." Seiryah opened her mouth to ask why she had hidden her identity, but Liris answered instead.

"After turning eighteen, instead of going to the University, you decided that you wanted to see how normal people lived. You worked a number of odd jobs… and used several different names."

"Really now…" Seiryah tried to picture this, but failed.

"After we met, I ran into you several other places… and you saved me from getting my head beaten in after I started asking the wrong questions. When I told you what was going on, you decided that you wanted to help out."

"And what was 'going on' as you so aptly put it?" Seiryah asked.

"Nothing much," Arvel said sarcastically, glaring at Liris. "Just a conspiracy to overthrow our government."

Liris rolled her hazel eyes. "Spare me the melodrama, Shida."

Seiryah ignored Liris's skepticism and turned her attention fully to Arvel. "Tell me more."

Arvel sighed and raked a hand through his black hair. "I suppose it all started when my brother… he works as an auditor, someone who goes over the accounts of businesses or individuals to make sure they're accurate… was given the job of assessing house Sheyol's finances. The job was too big for one person… I think the idea was that he was supposed to clear them. That wasn't enough to stop Reisen, he's always believed in getting a job done. Anyway, as Reisen processed the accounts, he noticed an irregularity. Someone was siphoning a fair amount of cash out of the house coffers and not recording what it went for. And, since the money wasn't being recorded, it wasn't being taxed, either. When Reisen went to his supervisor, the man threw a fit and told him to keep his nose out of places where it could get bitten off along with his head. So Reisen, being Reisen, decided to find out where this money was going to."

"My, my, doesn't _this _sound familiar." Liris interjected sarcastically.

"Where was the money going?" Seiryah asked, ignoring Liris's comment.

"It was financing a training faculty located in the badlands between our country, Misel, and what used to be the Empire of Sadinra. House Sheyol had raised several _thousand_ soldiers. No house is allowed to have more than one hundred armsmen in their service at any time, and it's been that way for the last century and a half. Shortly after he discovered that, Reisen was fired. We think House Sheyol blacklisted him as well, he hasn't been able to hold a decent job for a while now."

"What about these soldiers? Didn't you try to warn anyone about them?"

Arvel grimaced. "The next place Reisen went was to the authorities, but by the time they went, the whole place had been cleared out, and Reisen was threatened with jail time if he didn't stop spewing out his 'foolish slander'. So he came to me, and I started investigating with help from a few friends and contacts. What we found was alarming. Not only was Sheyol trying to put together an army, there were – still are – planning to corner the market with foreign gold… I haven't been able to figure out where that's supposed to come from, all I know is that they don't have it yet… and they're also attempting to find the six lost Artifacts from the Great Arcana War."

Liris dropped the glass she had been about to fill with milk. "_That _wasn't in the article you published, Arvel."

"What's the Great Arcana War?" Seiryah asked.

Arvel sighed. "The Great Arcana War started about twelve hundred years ago and lasted for about a century. By the time it was over, the world had nearly been destroyed, and civilization had been set back a few hundred years. Things had gotten so bad that no one knew what year it was anymore by the old calendar, and they had to make a new system for marking the years. Anyway, the six Artifacts were weapons made by the ancient civilizations during the war as they struggled for an edge. Sheyol has already found and claimed one of the Artifacts: The Sphere of Risile. Luckily, the Sphere isn't a weapon, but it does generate a potent shield. It might also have several other abilities that we don't know about."

Liris raised an eyebrow. "_Really _now. Most people think that the Artifacts are a fairy tale, Arvel. You're even crazier than I thought you were. It's probably better that you didn't publish that too, or you would have been institutionalized!"

"You believe," Arvel said, pointing at the broken glass strewn around Liris's feet. "Or why did you drop that? And why haven't you cleaned it up yet?" Liris glared at the glass, glared at Arvel, glared at the glass again, then whipped around and grabbed the dishrag that had been sitting next to the sink and wet it so it would pick up the glass.

"Then they're planning something big. World domination. World _freaking_ domination. Again. The Geldoblames of Misel, and I'm freaking _related _to them." She muttered under her breath.

"What was that?" Arvel asked. Seiryah blinked. She hadn't realized that she had been talking out loud.

"I asked… what is this article that Liris keeps muttering about?" she said, too startled to think of a decent question.

Arvel grimaced. "After we found out about the Sphere, I convinced my editor to let me run everything I had found so far in an article… everything except the information about the Sphere. Like Liris pointed out so eloquently earlier… I didn't want to be thrown in a mental institution. Saishra Sheyol herself had me jailed for slander. It's not every day that the leader of the Council of Eleven – those are the most powerful nobles in the kingdom, they advise the king directly – calls you a dirty sneaking rat and accuses you of fermenting discord. I was thrown in jail for six months.

"You were already helping by this point, Seiryah. It was thanks to your… skills… that we were able to find out about the Sphere at all. You were looking for the connection between the Artifacts, the soldiers, and this foreign gold that house Sheyol seems to think that it can get its hands on. I don't know what happened exactly, I was still in jail at the time, but you called Mihkal the night before the accident and told him that you'd found something. Twenty-four hours later you were missing, and your apartment had been broken into. According to the police, only the computer had been taken… that's a new one, by the way… Liris came home to find your papers strewn all over the apartment. They probably took some of those, too."

"So… are you saying… that my family was _murdered, _along with _hundreds _of people because of something that I knew?"

Arvel's eyes were clouded by this point, and he hung his head in shame. "I'm almost certain of it. Mihkal told me that you were frantic on the phone, and that the only thing that you would tell him is that the conspiracy went 'all the way to the top'."

Seiryah's eyes darkened. "Is my gran… is Saishra Sheyol involved with this?"

"Most likely. If Sheyol had something to do with the subway explosion, she almost certainly gave the order."

Seiryah stared at nothing. She'd been home for less than a day, and was already neck deep in a conspiracy. 'I'm sorry, Seiryah," Arvel said softly. Seiryah opened her mouth to tell him that he had nothing to be sorry for… how could he have done anything while imprisoned?... but the words died on her tongue as her mind focused on something else Arvel had said.

"What did you mean when you said that I was _missing?_' Seiryah asked, fragments of her dream flashing through her mind.

"There are no authentic medical records on you for three days after the accident. You just… appeared, one day, in a hospital on the opposite side of town from the area where… where it happened. No one knows where you were before that, or what happened to you."

Seiryah sat there, the wheels in her head turning. If she'd been found after being missing… couldn't Alvira be somewhere too?

The somberness was interrupted by a loud ringing sound, and Arvel fished a small metallic-looking object out of a pocket in his pants. He had a brief conversation with someone who sounded like his boss from his responses, and excused himself.

"So…" Liris said, trying to break the silence. "Are you interested in some lunch?

* * *

AN: So, you finally get some answers. And things are finally happening on the Baten Kaitos side, although I don't think they're going to progress too quickly. Actually, the bits with Melodia and Geldoblame were the easiest parts of this chapter to write. Special thanks to Rebbe, Toki, and Luv2Game for reviewing!

Next Chapter: Seiryah learns how to use a phone. Liris explains more things. And Maisra is… Maisra. Oh, and other things, as usual. Can't tell you everything, can I?


	6. Distance

By the way… about the microwave… I don't know if doing that can really give you cancer. My sister said it could, but Rachel's a know-it-all, and might've said it just so she could boss me around. Which means it's probably not true. I just put it in because she pissed me off...

Fifth Chapter: Distance

Liris pulled two boxes out of the white cold box.

"What are _those?_" she asked, looking distainfully at what was coming out of the boxes. She thought there might be meat, and the green things could be vegetables, but there were weird things poking out of the yellow substance that she hoped was cheese.

"_These_ are our lunches. Chicken, garlic green beans, and macaroni and cheese."

"What's macaroni?"

"Basically, processed wheat."

"So… it's like bread?"

"Yeah."

"In little circular shapes?"

"It comes in other shapes, too."

"Oh." A pause. "Do they taste any good?"

"By themselves, they don't really taste like anything. And they're terrible if you don't cook them. When you put the right sauces on them, they taste yummy," Liris sighed, as if she were talking to a child.

Which she was, in this world. A child.

Liris then took a knife and slit the thin clear film covering one of the meal's topside and stuck it into a smaller black box and pushed several buttons. The machine made a whirring noise as it started up.

"What does that do?"

"It's called a microwave. It cooks the food."

Seiryah blinked. "How? How does sticking food in a box make it cook?"

Liris answered in autopilot. "The microwaves are emitted…" she snapped back to reality and clearly noticed the lost expression that Seiryah knew she must be wearing. "They emit energy, which cooks the food."

"Really? Can I see?" She leaned over…

"Don't do that! You could make yourself sick! Microwaves can be poisonous…"

"Then why are we using them to cook our food?"

Liris sighed in exasperation and started to pour the milk.

* * *

"So," she said, taking a bite of spiced vegetables. They were soggy, but didn't taste that bad. "What are Yena?"

Liris sighed. "You like the hard questions, don't you?"

"Huh?"

"Never mind. Do you remember how Arvel was talking about the Arcana War earlier?" Seiryah only snorted in response. "Well, yes, I doubt you could forget something like that so quickly. Well, Yena were 'created' during the war, because people were dying faster than they could be replaced. By blending the genetic material of humans with some characteristics of animals, they could create and mass produce soldiers to die for them. Although there were more types of Yena created than just soldiers. As the idea gained acceptance, Yena were created for all the jobs that humans didn't want to do. They were slaves."

Seiryah shuddered. "Are they still treated that way?"

Liris shrugged. "Well, they're not slaves anymore, but people are extremely prejudiced against them, and it's almost impossible for them to get a decent-paying job."

Seiryah rolled her eyes. "I don't know what pisses me off more, the fact that people created an entire _race _to do the things they didn't want to, or the fact that even after they've admitted they're wrong, they _still _treat them like dirt."

Liris looked at her for several moments. "You haven't changed at all."

Seiryah smiled slightly as she thought of what she had experienced in her time as a Guardian Spirit. "I doubt that…"

"No, you haven't changed. Well, you're clueless now, but other than that…" Liris smiled fondly, and they ate in silence. They didn't really have anything to talk about, not unless Seiryah asked more questions.

As she sat there, in a city full to the brim with more people than she could have guessed existed, she was struck by exactly how utterly alone she was. She had many people who claimed to be her friends, or her family, but she couldn't remember anything about them, not even enough to know if they were telling her the truth or not. Liris sat there smiling happily as she ate. She felt a… kinship, almost, with the woman, but even Liris had little, if anything in common with the Seiryah that she had become.

For the first time in three years, she was 'home'. And yet she was plagued by a feeling that she could only describe as homesickness.

* * *

"Lady Melodia!" came the panicked cry from the hallway as her bodyguards burst into the room. She barely registered their presence.

"Back! All of you stay back!" the young duchess yelled. The guards hesitated, clearly not wanting to leave their lady in the room alone… "Whoever's in here can make themselves invisible! I can't concentrate if I have to worry about all of you…!" A slight whooshing noise was all the warning she had, she summoned her Sleet Shawl, which blunted three needles that had been shot at her enough for her to roll out of the way. Unluckily for the guards, they had no time to summon a defense. The needles hit one in the face and stuck in the armor of the other. The one who had actually been struck screamed in pain and started writhing on the floor. Melodia glanced at the needles. More specifically, at the pale lavender coating on the needles. "Don't touch them!" She barked at the guard who was about to pull the needles out of his armor. "They're poisoned!"

"Very clever, Lady Melodia," came a mocking, definitely masculine voice from the opposite side of the room. "Very clever indeed. But clever isn't enough to save you this time! Without a god to hide behind, you're nothing!"

"And you just gave away your position," she replied dispassionately. **"Aqua Burst!"**

Gigantic icicles burst up from the floor, hitting her poor bed and shredding it, sending ice and fragments of wood everywhere. "Missed me!" came the cheery rejoinder.

"Did I?" she asked, smiling sweetly. Her assailant took a step forward…

And something crunched beneath his feet. Ice, to be exact. Ice from Melodia's previous attack.

"Shaan," he hissed. Melodia didn't know the word, but it sounded like a curse to her.

"**Dark Flare!" **cried Melodia, and a burst of dark energy went off. Her assailant screamed in pain: this time her spell had hit. Something… flickered. Maybe, one more time… **"Dark Flare!"**

A second scream erupted from her enemy, and something spewed sparks on his right hand. Suddenly he was quite visible, and he crashed to the floor in an ungainly heap.

"Give this to him," she said to the unwounded soldier, handing him her Sacred Wine magnus and nodding in the direction of his companion, who was now reduced to shaking and moaning, but still breathing.

"Y-yes, Lady Melodia!" he replied, nodding jerkily. _To be so easily unsettled… he must be a new recruit, _Melodia realized. She then stalked over to her assailant and grabbed the collar of his dark coat, dragging him up so she could stare into his half-glazed eyes.

"Where is the antidote?" she snarled.

"Antidote?" he asked, his voice sounding pained and confused.

"The antidote to your needles, foolish man!" she snapped. "I can't honestly believe that you would walk around with such dangerous weapons without an antidote!"

He scoffed. "Why… would I… give it to you? So you can… heal that idiot?"

"So you can live. Injuries caused by dark magic are many times more likely to become infected. If you do not receive treatment within the next five minutes, you will die. I can even guarantee that we will allow you to leave… after you are escorted outside of Mira, of course. Just give me the antidote." She was lying, of course, but she doubted that the man would know that. So little was known of the arcane arts by the common people that the lie was easy for him to swallow.

Her attacker looked hesitant, his eyes flickering briefly to the downed soldier, and back to Melodia's crimson orbs. "O-okay! I give up! I don't want to die!" His hand went to his belt pouch…

"Lady Melodia, get back!" the uninjured soldier cried out in warning, throwing his spear. Melodia had to push away from her prisoner and duck to avoid being impaled. The assailant, not being physically able to avoid the incoming projectile, took the spear cleanly through his stomach. Something small and metal dropped from his gloved hand. Another throwing needle, coated in poison.

Melodia cursed her stupidity. Why hadn't she thought of that?

"Stupid… witch…" coughed the assassin. "I'm… better off dead than going back without finishing the job. They'll… make me wish I'm dead… kill my family too…"

"Who is 'they'?" Melodia asked. But it was too late, her assassin was already gone. Her red eyes swept around the room. The guard who had been hit might still make it if she could find the antidote, but her room was a disaster area. However, miraculously, her desk... and all the gods-forsaken _paperwork _had survived.

So, a dying guard, a pile of splinters for a bed and dressing table, a mysterious 'they' who wanted her dead, and _more_ paperwork.

Joy.

* * *

In Alfard, where the rebuilding process was starting slowly due to lack of concentrated leadership, a few minor accidents occurred that same day. Machines malfunctioned, a chain suspending scrap snapped, causing several unwary civilians to be pelted by scraps of metal, and a roof collapsed in Mintaka. Luckily, no one was killed or even seriously injured. People blamed it on the lack of leadership, on Geldoblame's misrule, on Melodia and Malpercio, and any number of things. No one saw the relatively inconspicuous cloaked figures moving among them, hiding their smiles behind their hoods. They weren't supposed to.

And, due to the time difference between their dimensions, all this and Melodia's near-death experience happened between the time Seiryah finished meeting with her grandmother and when she finished her microwaved lunch and went out on the apartment's patio to think. Later in the day she would call Maisra, and arrange to meet her in three days, hoping for an understanding hand to help her adjust to some simple things, like reading, while silently hoping that the silver-eyed woman wasn't one of the people who had been responsible for the deaths of her family.

But for now she sat, and watched people and Yena scurry around the enormous city as events in a world she still though of as home turned once again for the worse, and as the powers in her own once again took notice of her, and started working out how to use her lack of memory to her advantage.

And somewhere far from the apartment building, but in the same world, blue eyes framed by red-gold hair that now reached almost to the floor looked out a window, wishing for the home that she was starting to forget. But she couldn't get out, didn't dare, so she simply started once again to recite a part of her new favorite story as she idly kicked a rather expensive looking doll that had fallen out of her hands and onto the richly carpeted floor…

"Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your long hair…"

* * *

Three guesses as to who the blue eyed girl was… -.-;;

Sorry you had to wait so long for this chapter! It would have been up earlier, but I got dragged to my relatives for Easter Break. Thanks to Toki, Frozenleaf, Rebbe, and Luv2Game for reviewing! I hope your spring breaks didn't suck as badly as mine did.


	7. Adrift

Sixth Chapter: Adrift

When Seiryah woke up the next morning and swung lazily out of her bed, she hit her foot on something hard. Curious, she pulled a small white box (nothing larger would have fit) out from underneath the bed. She opened the box…

And found about twenty white cards, edged in gold. On them was written something in fancy script. Unfortunately, she couldn't read it. However, from comparing the cards, she realized that they were all saying the exact same thing. She also found envelopes, decorated almost as nicely as the cards, each with two pairs of symbol groups… two words… on it. Those were probably names. Some had more than that on different lines mixed in with numbers, maybe addresses? It looked as if the person writing the addresses (herself?) had gone back to address the envelopes and stopped about halfway through.

_Now, what would you send out in so many copies like this? An announcement? Invitations? _

_Hmm… maybe I'll ask Liris._

Liris was still at work… she had the night shift at the hospital she was working at, and that hadn't changed just because Seiryah was up and about, although Liris had said that she was going to try and get her schedule changed. So, she had about two hours to kill before Liris got home, and not much to do. She knew how to operate the television, although the device didn't interest her that much. Most of the other entertainment in the apartment required the ability to read, and she didn't really feel very comfortable going around in the foreign city all alone…

_Ring… ring…_

Seiryah started, her hands going for a weapon, before she remembered that that sound meant that the phone was ringing. She picked up the receiver and asked, "Hello? May I ask who is calling?" with a fair amount of confidence, although she knew that this invention would take some time getting used to. Her own disembodied voice, she had no problems with. Hearing other people in the same manner… well, that was just a bit freaky…

"No need to be so formal, Seiryah," Vanyel replied cheerily.

"Vanyel!" she said, relieved that it was a voice she at least recognized. And from the side of the family that wasn't possibly plotting to kill her. "Good to talk to you again! How are you?"

"Probably better than you are," he teased. "How are you coping?"

"…everything's a bit overwhelming," she replied honestly. "So… any reason that you're calling?"

"Hmm… still to the point I see. Would you and Liris mind if I came over and took you away for a few hours? You did promise that you would learn the traditions of both your families…"

"What traditions, exactly?" Seiryah asked, feeling a bit suspicious.

Vanyel sighed over the line. "Why me?" he muttered. "Why always me…?"

"Vanyel?"

He sighed again. "Have you noticed anything… odd… about yourself, Seiryah? Anything different from other people?"

_Is he talking about my Spirit magic? How can he know…? _"Well, I have amnesia, and this really huge burn scar on my back…" she started sarcastically.

"Um… no. What I'm talking about is… magic. Y'see… a certain type of magic, spirit magic, is very common in our family."

"Magic," Seiryah said, trying to invest as much scorn into the word as possible. Vanyel sighed at the other end of the line, clearly getting annoyed.

"Whether you believe it or not, it's the truth, Seiryah. Before the accident, you were one of the strongest of our line… and if I don't get you re-trained soon, my mother will have my head. I'm rather fond of it on my shoulders, thank you."

Now it was Seiryah's turn to sigh. "Very well. Liris isn't home now, so if you're going to pick me up 'as soon as possible', you're going to need to write her a note."

"Huh? Why can't you… oh. Right. Sorry, stupid question…" They exchanged a few more pleasantries, and Vanyel hung up. Seiryah walked over to the sofa and threw herself on it.

How was she going to bs knowing anything about her magic with someone who had probably been training himself since he was a toddler?

* * *

Geldoblame followed his new ally through an impossibly large city, teeming with people and filled with enormous buildings that seemed to rake at the Sky itself. He absorbed everything he saw, envisioning the buildings cast in gold, of a towering golden Mintaka that would loom large over the new world that would be his when he was restored to a body again. His strange ally had told him that it would be impossible to restore his old body, but that he could have a new one, a better one. Not one with claws or a tail, as he had seen a few part animal… _sub-humans _as they progressed to their destination. His ally assured him that he would not have to suffer the indignity of coming back from the beyond as a Yena.

They eventually arrived at a smaller building, where he floated in behind his ally. The man entered the gloom, filled with what Geldoblame thought might be incense as if he had been here before several times. Perhaps he had been.

"I need to speak with Misana," Geldoblame's ally said curtly to a woman behind the desk.

"Hmm… she doesn't usually take customers this early. But… if you made it worth my while…"

The man sighed in exasperation and tossed a few slips of off-white paper marked with green ink on the woman's desk. The simpleton's eyes bulged, and without another word she pressed a button on her desk. There was a buzzing sound, and a door on the far left opened, revealing a staircase.

"_Very nicely handled," _Geldoblame commented, impressed.

"Money may not be the answer to every problem one encounters, but it always helps," the other man replied, shrugging his shoulders in a mock display of modesty as they started up the staircase.

"_Who is this 'Misana'?" _Geldoblame asked, curious.

"To the general public, she's a prostitute, and runs this brothel. Both those things are true, however she also is the head of the Necromancer's Guild, and can probably point us to someone who might be willing to resurrect you." And, in answer to his unasked question, the man added, "Necromancy is outlawed in Misel, and most other countries on the continent of Ohanel. Whenever they do organize, it's necessary for the leaders to be hidden, in a way."

"_Like hiding the fact that you're a murderer by claiming to be a thief." _Geldoblame would have nodded and smiled, if he'd had a body. Women were rarely what they appeared to be on the surface. He'd learned _that _lesson the hard way. They reached a doorway, and Geldoblame's ally ducked through the expensive satin curtain and walked confidently into the room…

Stretched out on a low couch was a woman, dressed in some sort of traditional robes. She appeared to be in her late thirties, early forties. Even though the lines of age were slowly beginning to creep upon her features, it was clear that she had been very beautiful as a young woman. Even now, she was still pleasing to the eye.

"Hmm, a visitor so early? What brings the likes of you to this section of town?" she asked, her smile both teasing and seductive.

"Business, sadly. I was wondering if you could help me with a matter of someone who desires… a second chance, shall we say."

Cerulean eyes narrowed as the woman focused on the spot in the air where Geldoblame hovered. "What a vile spirit. Lived a sinful and nasty life, didn't you? _And _traveled a good way to get here, you don't feel like a spirit of this world."

Much as he wanted to tell the woman to watch her mouth, he kept silent. He knew that this woman currently held power over whether or not he got a new body, and so prudently refrained from putting her in her place.

Besides, once he had his body, there would be plenty of time to kill her.

"Well, although I myself do not have the skills necessary to attempt a resurrection of this type, I do know of a few in the city who can." She got up and glided over to a filing cabinet, painted red and gold to match the rest of the room, and pulled out three files, handing them to the man Geldoblame was allied with. "Any of them could do this, however, the trick would be providing a living body…" she eyed him critically, "…not that that would be any problem for you… and convincing them that they actually want to do this. I would recommend Brightly, personally. He may be the weakest of those three, but not by much, and he's more open to suggestions backed with green. The other two are moral to the point of fault."

"…hmm… what?" He dropped two of the files, staring at the third as if he had just found unexpected gold. "This person…?"

Curiosity piqued, Misana leaned over his shoulder to see which one he had picked. "That one!" she hissed indignantly. "You just chose the most _stubborn_ and _righteous_ necromancer I have ever encountered!" she cried, spitting out the words 'stubborn' and 'righteous' like curses. "That one only… only!... uses the magic to lay the dead to rest. You approach with that spirit in tow, and you'll be lucky if the 'fun' just stops with him being sent back to the netherworld! If you ask that infuriating brat for a resurrection, you _will_ be turned in, and I doubt that even _you _could shake off a charge of trafficking in unsanctioned sorcery!"

Instead of calling down the woman for her insolence, the man just laughed. Geldoblame made a mental note of this. Prostitute or not, apparently being head of the Necromancer's Guild gave this Misana a lot of power. "Beautiful Misana, it's simply a matter of putting the right information on the table. I happen to know this… necromancer…" he shook his head as if he could not believe it. "…in passing, and I can assure you, this is a gullible and naïve fool we are dealing with."

"…perhaps, but not stupid. You may be able to hoodwink this one, but once your lie is uncovered..." Misana shuddered. "Quite frankly, the brat's a vindictive bastard once pissed. Even _I _am truthful with the vile little..."

"Really? I thought that was an honor reserved for me…"

Misana snorted. "It's an honor reserved for intelligent people who are perfectly capable of taking me apart if I piss them off. If you are so convinced to go on a fool's errand, be my guest. Take the file with you. My treat."

* * *

Seiryah was gawking. She knew she was gawking. But she couldn't help it. Liris had mentioned the Old City once, in passing, but nothing had prepared her for the dramatic change in… well, everything.

For starters, it was quiet. Oh, there was still plenty of noise, but it wasn't the positively frantic din of the city as too many people packed into too little space tried to navigate the congested streets, there were no blaring horns, no sirens, no shouting of people trying to be heard over the bustle, no street merchants hawking their wares…

Everything was… peaceful. The houses were actually pleasing to look at, the architecture reminding her a little bit of Sheliak, because almost everything seemed to be made of wood or stone. The buildings were a decent height, not so tall that she felt her next beginning to hurt when she tried to see the tops. In short, it was the only place in this world that felt anything like home.

"The king's castle is even more impressive," Vanyel teased her. She blushed a bit, slightly humiliated at being caught staring. "And… ah, here we are. Home sweet home. Not that you remember, but I'm sure you'll still love it here.

The building complex that they were pulling into was markedly different than the others. These were generally no taller than three stories, wood instead of stone. The architecture was also dramatically different, even though the roofs still came to a peak, they were… rounded… at that peak, and there was ornamentation at the corners. The gardens seemed to contain several of the same type of tree, all the bushes had a distinctly ornamental feel. Of course, all the gardens she had seen on the wealthy houses had an ornamental feel, but this was different, and… well… she didn't have the words to describe it, it was so utterly alien from everything she had encountered before.

And yet at the same time, oddly comforting. Maybe Vanyel was right. Maybe this was ho…

_It was night, in that very same garden. Nothing seemed to have changed but the season, the trees were adorned with hundreds of pink flower blossoms, and many of the other plants in the garden had put forth colorful flowers. Everything had a… fuzzy quality to it, like a picture just slightly out of focus, or a memory that was beginning to fade._

_A young girl, nine or maybe ten, stared up at the stars. She was biting her lip, clearly nervous, her silver eyes open too wide, as if she'd had a nightmare. She was dressed in nothing but a white, unadorned nightgown, although she didn't appear to be cold._

_A door slid open, and another girl walked out. She appeared to be fourteen or fifteen, black hair falling like a veil down to her waist._

"_What's wrong, Seirie? Couldn't sleep?" asked the older girl, sitting next to the younger Seiryah in the grass._

_The child nodded, her close-cropped red hair bouncing as she did so. "I'm worried, Crysta. Everyone's talking about the war, and Aunt Mel has been all broody and snappy and Vanyel won't talk to anyone… something happened to Uncle Rhyden, I know it did…"_

_The black haired teen said nothing, but her lips thinned and her silver eyes turned inward. "Seirie. This is probably the worst possible time to tell you this, but since no one else will… Seiryah, there was a… an accident…"_

"Yo, Seiryah? You okay?" Vanyel asked, looking concerned.

"Um… fine. Just… fine. So, lets get to this training of yours, and then, can we see some more of the old city? Can we?" she asked.

Vanyel smiled slowly. "I was afraid you were going to make me spend all day teaching you…" he sounded relieved. "There was actually a place that a friend of mine wanted to show me. I _guess _you could come along… but, sadly, we have to do _some _training before we go anywhere, because my mom will skin us both alive if we don't get at least _some _training done."

* * *

A knock on the door of her new temporary bedroom startled Melodia so badly that she almost upset the inkwell. And, although she would love nothing more for her massive pile of paperwork to be thinned out, doing it in that manner would only cause her a massive headache.

"Enter," she said curtly. A nervous maid, one of the newly hired ones who were a little afraid of her, walked hesitantly in.

"U-um, there's an envoy from Alfard waiting for you in the audience chamber, Milady. They're petitioning for spare soldiers. I… didn't get the exact details."

Melodia bit her lip. If the people of Alfard had unbent enough to send an emissary for help, than whatever was going on in the war-torn country was probably pretty serious. And, no doubt, entirely her fault. "Where is Natasha? Doesn't she normally handle these things?" Natasha was in charge of all the household servants, and she was the one who winnowed the many petitioners who came to Calbren Manor, only allowing those who actually needed an audience to see herself or her grandfather.

"Natasha is currently indisposed, Milady. I believe she ate something this morning that disagreed with her."

Melodia blinked, worries of poisoning coming immediately to mind, but she shoved them aside. Just because someone had tried to assassinate her three days ago didn't mean that everyone who fell ill in the household was victim of an attempt that had missed its target…

Still, the timing bothered her.

"I'll see Alfard's envoy immediately. And make sure Natasha has a doctor come in to look at her. We can't afford to lose her in the middle of all this."

The maid's lips quirked into what might have been a smile. "I'll be sure to tell her that, Milady." And with that, the maid left, and Melodia sighed. An envoy from Alfard. My, this was going to be… unpleasant.

* * *

So, any particular favorite for Alfard's messenger? I'm leaning towards Vallye personally.

I'm sorry that this chapter wasn't longer. I had a fight with my mom, and it killed my urge to write.

Next Chapter: Melodia hears Alfard's message, Seiryah gets a lesson in magic... and other things. There's always something else…


	8. Sparks

I'm not dead yet!

Seventh Chapter: Sparks

A redheaded woman stared out at the landscape blankly, her dark green, almost black eyes taking in the surroundings while seeing nothing.

_Why the hell am I going back? _She wondered, picking idly at the black roses she had embroidered on the sleeves of her denim jacket. It seemed lifetimes since she had returned home, and lifetimes since what had been done to her. It hadn't really been _quite _that long, of course. It merely seemed like forever. The emptiness inside of her seemed to pulse as the train drew inexorably closer to the one place on the entire continent that she had no desire to return to…

"What's a pretty little thing like you doing all alone?" a tall, stocky man with messily cut sandy hair and a shadow of a beard on his face asked, sitting far too close for comfort.

"I am not 'little', and I am alone because I wish to be so." _'Go Away' _all but echoed in the train car with a near-physical presence, but the idiot either missed or ignored the hint. She scanned the car, and finding it empty briefly toyed with the idea of doing something… violent. But no, that was a bad idea, corpses always prompted annoying questions and paperwork these days, and it would take a baffling amount of effort to slip away unnoticed.

"You certainly seem little to me. Like a cute little dolly..." Well, maybe she was short. In her time period, she had been just slightly above average height, and people only seemed to get taller and taller as the years rolled by. However, simply because that was true did not mean that she wished to be called, 'dolly' by a total stranger. Or any other demeaning nickname, for that manner. And at no point in her life had anyone ever _dared_ to call her 'cute' unless she had given them leave to do so.

"I am returning to the city for a funeral, I wish to be left alone," she said coldly. And she did look it. Other than her dark denim jacket, she was dressed entirely in black. But did the idiot back off? No, of course not. Why do the sensible thing when you can persist to make a jackass out of yourself?

"Hmm, that's a shame, maybe you need some… comforting…" And, like the total fool he was, he made a clumsy grab for her, which she tried to dodge, but his calloused hand, ran almost casually between her breasts…

He jumped back as something jolted his fingers. "What the hell…?"

The woman clamped down on her disgusted glare and traded the expression for a satisfied smirk as she swung out of her seat. She gave him a venomous glare and replied with a dark chuckle, "Oh, but it is hell, stupid man. I did warn you to leave me alone… behold the folly of Sadinra." She swept carelessly past him, seeking the comfort of a different car. She was going to have to get off at the next stop, there would be awkward questions if she remained…

The lout looked at his hand, the hand that had touched something hard that had shocked him where there should only have been soft, female flesh…

And, with growing horror, he realized that the fingers that had been affected were now encased in a crystalline substance that was spreading rapidly along his hand…

Every child on the continent of Ohanel is familiar with the story of the downfall of the mighty empire of Sadinra, when the gods brought judgment on the capital city and imprisoned the people in crystal…

Since it was noon on a weekday, the train was practically deserted. There was no one close enough to hear the man's single wail of panic.

(This is a scene break. The button won't work...)

"Okay," Vanyel said as they headed for a second courtyard located in the center of the compound, this one possessing a large treelike thing whose black flowers were as large as her torso that emanated a very strong magical aura. Vanyel seemed to ignore it; perhaps he was used to it. "One of the hardest things about Spirit magic is also one of its strengths, that it draws heavily on emotion. For an untrained Spirit Mage, strong emotions, like extreme anger or fear, can be dangerous to everyone in the area. For example…"Vanyel seemed to concentrate very hard for a moment, and a large patch of grass caught on fire. Seiryah gasped and opened her mouth to chant, but before she could say the first words of the water spell, the flames were snuffed out as if they had never existed.

"And _why_, little boy, did you wake me up for a temper tantrum?" A feminine voice hissed from the huge tree in the center of the large courtyard. From between the branches materialized the oddest woman Seiryah had ever seen.

Her hair and eyes were jet black. Although that wasn't so unusual, her hair was made up of large flower petals that curled around her head and her eyes were completely black, as if her pupils had expanded to take up her entire eye. Her clothing consisted of leaves, the top was bands of leaves held together by thorny branches, the bottom a short skirt of rounder petals, also black, that seemed to stick together of their own accord. Her skin was a pale shade of green, and she wore no shoes.

"And that is the reason that we're practicing here. This is a rose apparition, the spirit of the rose tree that grows in this courtyard. She can nullify lesser magics and control any other plants or plant spirits as long as they're weaker than her. Apparations don't give out their real names, but we call her Rosa.

"Um… Hi?" she said rather hesitantly. She could sense that the apparition was connected loosely to every plant in the area, and had to wonder what would happen if she lost her temper. Although, something seemed to be restricting her range. Seiryah decided to investigate that later…

Rosa smiled softly, and gently touched Seiryah's shoulder. "My poor little seedling, what did they do to you?"

"Uh…" all that was flying through her mind was: _seedling? _

Vanyel had a different reaction. "You know something about Seiryah's accident?"

"Not _accident,_" the flower maiden spat. "Definitely not accident. Child, I am sorry, but I cannot break the seal. I apologize, you will need to seek one whose power is greater than mine… or perhaps the one who cast it in the first place."

"I would rather die than ask for her help," she said resolutely, and was rather surprised that she still felt so strongly. But, as she thought about it, she realized it was true. She really would rather die than be in Melodia's debt. "Besides, she is as far beyond my reach as the moon is, now."

"What are you talking about?" Vanyel asked, and Seiryah realized with an unpleasant jolt that she had forgotten that he was still there and had probably said more than she should.

"The seal on her memories, of course," Rosa replied as if it were obvious.

"_Seal?_" Vanyel asked, incredulous and rather angrily.

"Ahah… seal? What seal? I don't know about any seal!" Seiryah said frantically, knowing that she had probably already dug her grave too far to start backtracking now. She had had made such a mess of things that she could almost hear Kalas laughing at her in the background, as he would probably have if he were here.

"Fine, I won't press," Vanyel sighed. "But _if_ there is a memory seal, and _if _you want it removed, you should probably seek someone's help. Removing a seal on your own memories is practically impossible."

"Why?" Seiryah asked.

"Because such things usually feed off of or otherwise pervert your own magic. And if you mess up when trying to remove them, you could end up destroying the memories that are sealed, or scour your mind blank. Depends on the strength of the seal." His eyes narrowed. "Actually, I'm not sure that you should risk using any magic until we get rid of that…"

"She'll be fine," Rosa called out, melding back into her tree. "It's not that kind of a seal. And it's already unraveling on its own. In another ten or fifteen years, it should be gone completely."

"How do you know all that just by looking at me?" Seiryah asked irritably. _Fifteen _years? _Oooh, if I could get my hands on Melodia right now…_

"Fine, but we should start with basic meditation anyway, before I reteach you the starting incantations."

…_I would skin her alive…_

At that moment, Seiryah and Alfard's representative were sharing the exact same thought.

Vallye had no desire to be asking any favors of Duchess Calbren. In fact, Vallye would have liked nothing better than to plant a plasma rifle shot in the center of the Duchess's chest. Melodia had tried to kill her personally during the invasion of the demon army. She and Skeed had gotten lucky, a section of the fortress's ceiling had fallen on them when Melodia had ambushed all of Alfard's top-ranked generals, obscuring them, injuring them, but not killing them. Some of Skeed's aides had braved Malpercio's monsters and dug them out before the demons could come back to do whatever the hell they did to the bodies after they killed them. They'd been forced to mount a pitiful resistance from the desert, barely scraping by and keeping themselves alive before the other nations had defeated Malpercio.

Okay, before _Lyude and his barbarian friends _had defeated Malpercio. Coming back to her brother… no, her _half-brother _as a national _hero_… he hadn't even stayed! He should have stayed, he should have helped to drive the demon armies out of Alfard… he should have done something for the Emperor…he should have…!

Well, instead of doing those things, he had saved the world. She'd live with it. She didn't have a choice in the matter.

"Oh," was all that the duchess said when she recognized Vallye. "You survived."

There were several rather impolite responses that came to mind in response to that statement, but none of them would have sat well in the mouth of an ambassador from an impoverished country. So all that she could say was, "Indeed. I believe I requested an audience with Duke Calbren…"

"My uncle is i… indisposed, so I am afraid that you will have to deal with me."

Vallye suppressed a flinch. The only 'I' word that she could think of that someone would use instead of 'indisposed' was _ill_, and this would be a very, very bad time for Duke Calbren to die. And now, she had to ask for help from not only an inferior country, but the very woman who was primarily responsible for the state her homeland was in now. "Alfard has been having difficulty over the last several days with… accidents… in the reconstruction efforts."

Crimson eyes narrowed in suspicion at Vallye's tone. "You do not seem to believe that these are accidents."

"All accidents were caused by very slight things that were aggravated in far, far too short a timeframe. However, no one has seen anything, our electronic surveillance has picked up nothing, and…" she couldn't bring herself to say it. It was too humiliating.

"You do not have enough manpower to protect your machinery from sabotage," Melodia said softly. If Vallye had seen that expression on anyone else, she would have called it a guilty one, but on Melodia Calbren's face she called it good acting. "And you are here for extra troops."

"If they can be spared," Vallye said. _If they can be spared. Please, oh please help us. What have we come to?_

"I cannot help you," Melodia said sadly. "Mira… Mira has problems of its own."

"I… see…" Problems? What problems? Mira had barely been touched by the war. There had been almost no civilian losses, most of the monsters hadn't been able to get through the dimensional rift…

"My grandfather," Melodia said, "stripped Mira's defenses to the minimum once he realized that Malpercio… that _I _was directing the main forces elsewhere. Miran soldiers reinforced the ranks in Diadem and Anuenue, and like those countries, we too suffered significant losses. Many of the soldiers in Mira's ranks are new recruits. And… we have our own problems. We need all our soldiers."

Vallye nodded, surprised that Melodia had given her so much information. She had known that Mira had reinforced the other countries, but not to such an extent. Then there was Duke Calbren's possible illness and the nebulous 'problems'. The same problems that Alfard was having, or something else? It could always be civil uprisings. Considering who was next in line for the Duchy of Mira, that was a very real possibility. "However…"

Vallye waited, not liking the tone of that at all, and barely suppressed the urge to snap back with a 'However what?'

"Invisible saboteurs." Vallye mentally scoffed at the idea of 'invisible' There were several mechanical devices and hacking techniques that could be found in Alfard that would make a person unable to be seen by a security camera, but current stealth technology consumed an enormous amount of firepower. The only piece of equipment in Alfard that had possessed stealth technology had been the _Goldoba_, and that had consumed so much power that it had to be dropped before the ship could attack. The one on the newest battleship, the _Dawnrunner_, was supposedly being designed to be more efficient, but from the preliminary blueprints the _Dawnrunner_ was going to be even bigger than the _Goldoba_ had been. Vallye couldn't believe that anyone was capable of designing a stealth device small enough for a single person or people to carry around. "Destruction for seemingly no purpose," the duchess continued. "And… our own problems. It may behoove you, Ambassador Vallye, to visit the Shrine of Spirits before you leave here. Your mechanics may be able to make something of this, as well," she handed Vallye a Magnus, containing, judging by the picture, some sort of broken machine.

"What is it, if I may ask?" Vallye asked, looking more closely at it.

"Before I destroyed it… it made the wearer invisible," she said with a small smile.

Vallye almost dropped the magnus as if it were a hot coal.

"Mira does not have the technology to repair, or even to examine this very closely. Perhaps Alfard will have more success finding out how it works." She and Melodia exchange more protocol-babble and Vallye left the audience chamber as quickly as decorum would permit. She left the manor somewhat more quickly than that, but she almost wondered if anyone even noticed. All the servants seemed preoccupied with something, and the soldiers were clearly looking for trouble to be coming that was not her. Little somethings that she might have loitered around a bit to investigate at any other time were brushed off without much more than a second thought. Alfard still had some agents in Mira that were getting their reports through, no doubt they would be able to discover whatever Melodia's 'problems' were. What was important was to get this Magnus back to the labs to see if it was what Melodia claimed it was. Because if it was… well, it might be the key to solving Alfard's current problems, and their way back to being the greatest power in the known world.

It is a pity, though, that Vallye did not follow Melodia's advice. For if she had, she would have found a little girl of about eight years asleep in the forest of Nekton, an odd child with red-gold hair almost as long as she was tall, a little girl who the monsters that lived in the wood instinctively avoided. And if it had been Vallye that found the girl, future events might have reached a very different conclusion.

A gray-haired, scrawny teenaged urchin swiped a sandwich from an unwary street vendor, dropping it into the burlap sac that hung from her black leather belt with the speed and fluidity that spoke of some actual training, not mere pickpocketry. Her clothing appeared to be of relatively decent make but filthy, indicating that she had only recently fallen on such hard times. She wore a pair of tight-fitting slate-colored jeans, a somewhat baggy light blue t-shirt with the number nine emblazoned across the chest in sky blue, and a turquoise scarf wrapped around her neck. The boots on her feet were well worn and very scuffed, but fit her perfectly and had probably been a stretch for her to buy when they had been new, and the twelve inch dagger that hung from her leather belt opposite the sack was a custom-made weapon, complete with the insignia of one of the better-known swordsmiths in the city. It was doubtful that such a fine weapon had ever been in this child's price range, but she wore it as if it were her right to use it, and those who recognized this gave her a wide berth. The rarer ones that actually recognized _her _would often give her a pitying look as she passed. Some, all Yena like herself, actually went as far as to grab her shoulder and give her a quick, commiserating squeeze. She'd never admit this to another living soul, but she was grateful for their sympathy. The reminder that others cared about what had happened made things a little easier to bear.

She rounded the corner and judged herself to be far enough away from the vendor that she had robbed that she could get her sandwich out of her bag and tear of the clear plastic wrapping. She hoped that there was something that she actually liked eating on the sandwich, She'd had to skip breakfast, and she was _starving_.

Well, not really starving. Not yet. This was a fair distance from starving, she remembered vaguely the time she had wandered the street after her mother had died of plague and before her teacher had taken her in. Her memories of that time were deliberately vague; the memories of her younger siblings starving to death because no one would feed them were not something that she relished. If it hadn't been for the old man…

_At least this time, I know enough to be able to steal enough food for myself without getting caught every other attempt. And there's Serena. _Serena was all sugar and softness, a dog-type Yena whose ears blended so perfectly with her wavy coppery brown hair that she was often and easily mistaken for a human. She was a warm, caring woman who excelled in everything that made their small apartment worth living in, including cleaning, sewing, and above all else, cooking. Serena was rather gifted when it came to preparing everyday food, and was great at making even the most meager of food into something edible, but the little dog-type Yena had her limits. The old man was dead, had been dead for two weeks, and now there was almost no money coming in. She needed a haul, a big haul, and soon.

She grimaced in distaste as she bit into the sandwich and tasted turkey. She had never been very fond of turkey. It was probably one of her least favorite meats, after bologna (which didn't really count as meat, as far as she was concerned.) But it was food, food she could eat without emptying her stomach, and it would do. At least it had been freshly made, not something out of a dumpster. As a child, she'd had to resort to that. And begging. She detested begging, although it had been something she had been good at out of necessity before she had learned her trade. Unlike her ragtag and unremarkable siblings, she was rather attractive, with luminous pale green eyes, pert features, soft gray cat ears, and a naturally guileless expression. All of which lead susceptible people to treat her like a poor hapless waif, which although it irked her, put her at an advantage. She was several times stronger than she appeared, and a good deal faster.

The smell of shrimp simmering in butter and garlic drifted out of a nearby restaurant, making her mouth water. Shrimp was her great weakness, her favorite food, but she restrained herself with an effort. It would be a long, long time before she tasted shrimp again. Right now she had a job to start.

She was heading to a small, grungy bar several blocks from here to meet her contact for her first solo job, and she was looking forward to it immensely. The Redcoats were going to pay for stealing the life of her teacher, the closest thing she had ever had to a father. By the name he had given her, Tinsel Bastalia, it would be done.

_She was trapped._

_She was wading through a pool of blood up to her knees, blood strewn with pink petals that looked like the petals of the Celestial tree, but much, much smaller. The pool spread uninterrupted to the horizon in every direction, where it met with the gray sky. It was utterly still, utterly lifeless. The only thing that moved at all was she herself, and the atmosphere felt like it was trying to suppress even that._

_That was probably why she noticed the family so quickly. In a world so still, movement of any kind was spotted almost instantaneously. There were six of them, a mother, a father, and four children, ranging from full adulthood a young child of six or possibly seven. Their colors were washed out and pastel, making it hard to see fine details, like faces or hair color. Most of them seemed to have very wavy or curly hair, however. Everyone did but the father and the littlest girl. They were walking parallel to her, parallel and very far away, and they did not seem to see her._

_She ran to them as quickly as she could, but she could only make so much progress in the knee-deep water, the shallow ocean of blood. When she had closed about a third of the distance, she began to wonder if the family was actually here, and not a figment of her imagination, for they seemed utterly unaffected by the atmosphere of the bleak place. They were smiling, laughing even. It was unthinkable for such a morbid place._

_When she had closed slightly over half the distance, _something _struck._

_The father fell first, set afire from some unknown source, screaming as he hit the water… blood… with a sickening hiss. The joviality of the group evaporated in an instant. The child screamed, while the others fell into fighting stances. The second eldest, one of the girls, produced a sword from her long coat. As she shucked off the cumbersome article of clothing, a silvery sheath briefly in the dull light of the not-world, before the coat disappeared beneath the sea(giant puddle?)_

_The wanderer briefly wondered why the girl had used a sheath for a weapon that she wished to be concealed, since using a magnus would have been so much easier, but the thought was dismissed as magic began to crackle and hum through the air. The wanderer hesitated briefly before forging forward, magnus deck in hand, ready to help the moment she got in range._

_The battle was short but brutal. The remainder of the family fought well, but one by one they fell. First went the mother, who could not use magic and recklessly ventured out of the shield that the eldest had forged to protect them all to attack the ones who had brutally murdered her husband, the enemies that the wander could not see. Once she was dead, the children dropped the shield and attacked simultaneously, raising magical barriers when fire burst upon them. The eldest was the second to fall, her energy greatly depleted by holding a shield for so long. The brother, the only surviving male, was struck down by the swordstroke that had been meant for his youngest sister when he threw himself in the way._

_The blood-sea rose up hungrily around the little girl, and she screamed as it seized her. The only remaining sister, the one with the sword, whirled to help, and was struck in the back by a burst of fire in the moment that her back was turned. Wavy hair fell from its complicated bun as the girl, almost woman, screamed in agony, barely catching herself from falling face-first into the bloody sea. With a pitiful moan, the little girl vanished beneath the vastness of the crimson as her sister screamed in pain._

_And suddenly, both the defeated warrior and the wanderer were grabbed by a fierce wind and thrown in a random direction._

_They both regained their feet. The blood-water was slightly deeper here, and there was a bit of a tug about their ankles. The petals drifted slowly on the surface, instead of remaining stationary upon the surface._

"_There's a current here," the wanderer commented. "We need to be careful."_

_The warrior looked at her for the first time with utterly dead eyes and asked in a monotone, "Who cares about careful?" She then began walking forward with slow, deliberate steps that became more confident as the pain in her back faded. The wanderer, with nothing better to do, followed._

_Suddenly there was another figure, one that the wanderer knew and cherished._

"_Kalas?" she asked joyfully. But he didn't hear her. He removed his sword from a magnus, walked up behind the oblivious warrior, and struck her with a sweeping, two handed horizontal blow that knocked her forward several feet. She went under for a brief moment, but came up spluttering and gasping for air, slick with the blood of the water and festooned with pink flower blossoms._

"_What the hells was that for?" The warrior spat. "We're supposed to work together!"_

_Kalas glared at the warrior. "We're doing this my way, and you _will _help me."_

_The warrior shook her head. "I never refused to help you. I sympathize with your goal. But this is not the way to get what you want. Don't play marionette to her puppeteer. I thought you had more respect for me. I know you have more respect for yourself."_

"_What's going on?" the wanderer shouted, but neither of the people in front of her could hear her anymore, and hence she was ignored._

"_Neither of us are strong enough. I need her help."_

"_Damn it to Junadriel's lowest hell, Kalas, did you ever even stop to consider what would happen to your world if you go through with this? Or, if you can't bring yourself to care about all the innocent people that will be slaughtered, could you please stop and think about what will happen to _me _if you go through with this?" the warrior shouted, grabbing him by his cape and shaking him. "Do you–"_

_Kalas was suddenly standing three feet away, Melodia across from him, and the warrior trapped between. _

"_You will forget everything that occurred… since the day you became a Guardian." Melodia smirked, and the warrior's eyes widened in horrified understanding._

"_So it ends…" she murmured, closing her eyes._

"_NO!" the wanderer screamed, but she was still unseen and unheard. A bolt of tainted light struck her in the chest, throwing her somehow _through_ Kalas and a great distance ahead. The wanderer rushed to catch up as the warrior pulled herself up yet again, weaponless and utterly confused. She turned to the noise of the wanderer's footsteps._

"_Ho, stranger! You wouldn't happen to know my name, would you?" asked the warrior._

_The wander skidded to a stop. "You can see me?"_

"_Of course I can. Do you know my name?"_

"_No. Mine's Xelha, though," the wanderer, Xelha, shouted while she resumed her running. She was closing the distance._

"_Well, _I _can't be Xelha if _you_ are," pouted the warrior, annoyed. "Maybe I'll ask that blue-haired guy. He seemed nice enough."_

_The warrior jogged ahead at a pace that made Xelha wonder once again if she were even there. It was all she could do to keep from losing ground. She wished she still had her wings, but they had disappeared when the Ocean had returned…_

…then why does Kalas have them…?

_As if in answer to her unvoiced thought, Kalas appeared once more. He was preparing to walk into a column of blackness, but before he stepped in, Melodia threw in the warrior as a shield._

_The warrior's scream was unlike anything Xelha had ever heard before. It sounded like her soul was being torn apart. Xelha ran forward as fast as she possibly could, but knew that she was far too slow._

…IwishIhadmywings,IwishIhadmywings,IWISHIHADMYWINGS-!

_And suddenly she did._

_She flew forward, battered by things she couldn't see. The black column disappeared, and Kalas watched impassively from above her as she surged forward, his twin white wings casting an eerie, somehow tainted white light, if pure white could be tainted. It was more of a feel than a color. She ignored that temporarily and dove down to where she had seen the warrior go down, and shoved her hands into the water. Her fingers closed around hair and she heaved, dragging the warrior out of the blood with all her strength._

"_Xelha?" the warrior asked weakly, spitting out a mouthful of blood as she did so._

"_Yeah. I think I remembered your name now."_

"_I… know. I'm… Seiryah."_

_A blast of wind loaded with the pink blossoms that were scattered on the surface of the water caught them both, ripping them apart and tossing Xelha around like a top. When it died, Xelha was about twenty feet above the water…_

_And her wings were gone._

_She screamed as she fell through the air, striking the blood-water at an odd angle but more or less headfirst, causing her body to sting as she abruptly went under. Luckily for her, the water was deeper here, deep enough that she was up to her neck._

_Unluckily for her, she could finally see an end to the blood sea. It stopped abruptly about fifty feet ahead and dropped off into oblivion._

_Thirty feet ahead of her stood Seiryah, alone._

"_I… I am Seiryah Veranen," she said hesitantly, and took a step forward. The moment that she did, the current of the water and the wind started driving her in every direction so that she was too busy trying to remain standing to see that she didn't have time to notice the edge that she was being slowly driven towards. Xelha started to swim clumsily towards her friend. Surprisingly, since the crosscurrents and changing winds were slowing her down, the distance between Xelha and Seiryah was steadily shrinking. She had a sinking feeling that it wasn't going to be enough, though._

_As she got closer, Xelha could see that it was _people _that were causing the shifts in current and wind. People that she had never seen before, many, many people. Some were old, some young, some even had animal ears or scales on their skin._

_As Seiryah came within feet of the edge, the water began to drop for Xelha. Now she was only submerged to about her chest, and still ten feet away. But Seiryah had been to her knees at this point! Why was the water so deep for her?_

_Suddenly, a person appeared quite clearly before Seiryah as opposed to the flickering of dozens, maybe hundreds of others, and the wind and current abruptly died. He was a gentle-looking young man, maybe the same age as Xelha and Seiryah were. Unfortunately, the nature of the place made his features, coloring, even what he was wearing difficult to fix in her head, and she knew that there was a pretty good chance that she wouldn't recognize him if she saw him again. The only thing that seemed to be sticking was the coronet of black thorny material that he was wearing._

_He held up his hand, and Seiryah raised the Ocean Mirror in a weak attempt to shield herself. Her arm was trembling from the light weight of the mirror, her hair soaked with drying blood to the point where Xelha wouldn't have been able to distinguish its color even if she had been able to see one other than the crimson of the blood, and her breath came in breathy gasps. The young man knocked her arm aside with his left arm and placed the index and middle finger of his right hand on her forehead. A malevolent dark energy gathered at his fingertips._

"_I'm sorry," he said softly. A single tear rolled down his cheek. "This is for your own good, and for Misel…"_

_The energy focused into a single concentrated blast that knocked the barely conscious Seiryah off the edge of the world of bloody water and flower petals into the oblivion of whatever lay beyond…_

"-la! Xelha!" shouted a voice that was as familiar to her as her own. She put aside her dream for a moment and opened her eyes.

"Kalas?" she asked weakly, surprised at how little strength she felt she had. Opening her eyes had almost taken enough energy to make her fall asleep again.

"You're alive… thank the Whale you're alive!" he gasped, hugging her gently, as if he were afraid that holding her too tightly would break her into a thousand pieces.

"Kalas… I don't… what happened?" she gasped. Kalas was very, very pale. He looked scared. The last time she'd seen him like this… well, she had died. Seeing stark fear on his face wasn't inspiring much confidence.

"You don't remember?" he asked, sounding rather worried. "Xelha… Wazn was attacked… you were hit and… I… I thought I'd lost you." The _again _that went at the end of that statement hung between them unvoiced, but somehow the louder for its silence. Each one knew the other was thinking it, and the loss was still fresh enough that even bringing up the subject was painful.

The rest of the statement, the part that was a lot more important that her second brush with death finally cleared the processing part of her mind. "Are we still under attack?" Xelha asked, trying to rise from her bed. If Wazn was being invaded, it was her duty as the Ice Queen to help the defenders.

"No," Kalas said, holding her down gently but firmly. "We drove off the assassins, but you were poisoned. You're confined to bed until further notice."

"If you think you can keep me here…"

"Barnette said so."

"Oh." _That _put an entirely different complexion on things. A simple doctor she could probably overrule, but Barnette had enough sway with the servants of the castle as Xelha's nurse that she could probably force Xelha to stay in bed no matter what orders she gave. "I… think I need to sleep…"

"I'll tell you everything that happened when you wake up, if you can't remember it on your own," Kalas promised, kissing her forehead. "Rest up, Xelha."

"Good-night, Kalas…"

(...End. And may the button work next time...)

Eheh… long time no see…. But since you (hopefully) don't know where I live, if you want to take out your frustrations at the long hiatus, you could always burn a copy of Huckleberry Finn for me. I think it was the paper that I did on that book that threw me into writer's block. And maybe a copy of Tom Sawyer, just for the principle of the thing. Hopefully, there was enough that happened in this chapter to give you all some excitement and something to think about to make up for the long wait. Thanks to everyone who reviewed the previous chapter.

Now, I'm going to bed. If you're in high school like I am, I hope your school year didn't start on August 31. Ours did.


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